Exogenesis (Or: A Symphony in Three Parts)
by sherlockthecockblock
Summary: The parts of an orchestra may sound different and very far removed, but when they are brought together, nothing can compare to the beautiful melody that they create. The beginning can be in a minor key, but more often than not, the composer has foretold it to be resolved. You just must be patient.
1. Chapter 1: Overture

It all starts, of course, when Castiel opens Purgatory. And after that, everything falls to shit.

_He's not Cas anymore_, Dean thinks. _He's not a friend. He will kill you if he has to. And we have to stop him… or die trying._

Cas wasn't himself, not since he'd started working with Crowley. Sam and Bobby had both expected this, but not Dean. Dean had just assumed they were being overly paranoid, though _why_, Dean couldn't figure. This was _Cas_ they were talking about. Cas would never betray them. Right?

Of course, Dean ate his words later. He always did.

Dean is with Sam and Bobby, trying to come up with a plan to stop Cas, or at the very least, to fix Sam well enough to get him stable. Dean remembers the moment he knew Cas was lying to them.

"_Superman going dark side," Cas tries to joke lightly._

_Dean's brain splutters to a halt as he hears Cas repeat the words that Bobby used earlier. He realizes that Cas was spying on them, unless he somehow knew about Superman- which he doubted, considering Cas just didn't do pop culture. Dean doesn't want to believe this- that Cas is lying to them, to _him_, as if it were nothing. Dean manages to recover well enough to say the only thing he can- something to get himself a confirmation. "Guess we won't have to stock up on Kryptonite, then?" _

"_Exactly."_

_And Dean knows it's over._

Dean is struggling with himself, because even though he knows Cas isn't _Cas_ anymore, he doesn't want to have to kill him to stop him. He wants to reason with Cas. He wants Cas to give up the souls of his own free will. He wants Cas to reopen Purgatory and everything can go back to the way it was- Team Free Will, and all that.

But it won't be that way, and Dean knows that. Cas broke Sam's wall, trapping Sam within his own mind for days. Cas opened Purgatory and soaked up more power than anyone on the planet had ever seen. He's killing more and more people every day, and it's their job to save those people in whatever way they can- and this time it means stopping Cas.

But for all he knows, they might already be too late.

Castiel hears the sound of Dean's voice pleading with him.

_Dean._

_What have I done to you now?_

The memories are there- Crowley working with Raphael, opening Purgatory on his own, the souls rushing into him- he can't control them, and they take him over before he can even scream. He has regained some semblance of control now, but not really. The souls could overpower him if they wanted to. They're biding their time. For what, Castiel doesn't know, but it won't be good.

_I should have listened to Dean._

Dean is saying something else, and Castiel knows Dean was right all along, he shouldn't have even opened Purgatory in the first place. The best thing he can do now is put the souls back in.

Sure, he'll die in the process. But what's the use of living if he can't make things right?

There's only one thing left he can do before he dies.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

Castiel turns to the burning symbols on the wall and is consumed by light.

Dean turns his face away as Cas lets the souls back into Purgatory. The light is blinding, and Dean suspects that it would just be better for their general health if they didn't look directly at it. It's like standing next to the sun- heat and light and _pure energy_ flows out of Cas' form as he stands before the door to Purgatory.

Despite everything Cas has done to them, Dean worries that the souls would burn Cas to ashes. Cas is still their friend, and Dean doesn't want him to die, not before he can fix Sam, not before he can even tell him everything he'd always wanted to say…

The light dies down, and the portal closes, and the angel he once called a brother lays still on the floor, not moving, not breathing, eyes closed off to the world.

_No, not this, anything but this, any_one_ but this, not now, Cas, please, open your eyes._

Dean notices he's holding his breath and that he's kneeling next to Cas already. Dean doesn't remember moving.

With a shaking hand, Dean reaches out to Cas' shoulder and gently rolls him onto his back. When he sees the burns and blood covering his best friend's face, he is taken by grief and pain so strong he nearly falls back, but something holds him in place- a tiny little hope that not all was lost.

Bobby is kneeling next to Cas now to. "Is he…" Dean takes a deep breath to steady his voice, because he is not going to cry in front of Bobby and Sam, because Dean Winchester _does not cry_. "Is he breathing?"

Bobby hovers a hand over Cas' mouth for a moment, then shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

Dean is desperate now. "Maybe angels don't need to breathe," he suggests at last resort, because Cas can't be dead, and Cas always comes back, didn't God always bring him back when this happened?

"He's gone, Dean."

Castiel opens his eyes.

He can tell, from a brief scan of his vessel, that the outward injuries have healed, apparently instantly; his vessel is no longer on the point of exploding, as far as he can tell. As he focuses his eyes, he sees Dean and Bobby kneeling over him, both looking very surprised. They haul Castiel up onto his feet, saying phrases Castiel cannot hear, or doesn't catch.

"That was…" Castiel tries to think of a word to describe the feeling of opening your vessel in such a manner. "Unpleasant."

Dean says something he doesn't quite understand, for some reason, but Dean grabs his coat sleeve and Castiel knows that he hasn't been forgiven, but Dean is willing to try, to take him back, to start over. Castiel sees the soul that he rescued from Hell and knows Dean is just as pure as he once was.

It happens in an instant.

An instant is an interesting thing. If Castiel were to define it, an instant is approximately 4 milliseconds. The instant we are concerned with occurs as follows:

In the first millisecond, something ancient stirs inside Castiel- something older than all of humanity, older than the demons and the angels, older than Michael and Lucifer themselves. It's too big, too powerful to handle. The fact that it has not yet torn Castiel apart is amazing.

In the second, Castiel recognizes the ancient being and gives it a name. Its name in Enochian, the language of the angels, translates roughly to "the Bringer of Black Death" (not to be confused with the Black Death of the Middle Ages, which was, in comparison to this, a walk through a patch of daisies).

In the third, the being becomes aware that it is awake, and begins to seize control of Castiel's vessel. Castiel registers this, and with it a single fact: Dean and Bobby are in danger.

In the fourth and final millisecond, Castiel acts on this. He grabs Dean, who is within his reach and pushes him with all the power he can spare from keeping control of his vessel. Dean needs to know what they're dealing with. "I can't hold them back!" Castiel gasps, doubling over in pain as the bottom half of his vessel is taken.

"Who?" Dean snaps, the hunter already moving to defend himself.

"_Leviathan!_" Castiel cries out as blackness seeps into the outer range of his vision. He looks up at Dean for what he is sure will be the last time in his existence.

As Castiel's grace fades away, he just barely catches Dean's voice saying his name.

The Leviathans are more powerful when they're grouped together in one place. Unfortunately, most containers are not powerful enough to hold all of them together, so their nature is to spread out as far as possible. This is why the Leviathans are enjoying being out of Purgatory for the first time in many millennia.

The Leviathans don't call themselves the Leviathans, obviously- what secret society calls themselves by their own name? Between each other, they refer to their race as the Superiors, or as the Better, or sometimes as just the Whole. They are the whole of Purgatory. They are the whole reason Purgatory was created. They are here to dominate the whole of the Earth and of humanity, and eventually, of Heaven and Hell. The Whole exists to take the Whole.

The Leviathans have a hive-mind structure. They are like worker bees around one central Queen- so long as the Queen lives, there is always order, and there is no deviation from said order. And their Queen cannot die and will not die. There is no danger of the elimination of the Queen, and therefore no danger of elimination of the Whole.

The Whole likes this vessel and sends many thanks to the previous owner, who is now nearly faded away. It will break apart soon enough, but this vessel will serve its purpose until they can find more. It's a small distraction to destroy the inhabitant's remaining life-force- an angel, as it turns out to be. How nice of Heaven to send a messenger into Purgatory. The Whole turns its attention to the other figures in its presence.

They're both humans- clearly hunters of some kind. The one on the right is taller and show signs of divine intervention but also of demonic deals, though in neither case in any kind of lasting capacity. However, the shorter hunter… He has been both owned by Hell and claimed by Heaven, very strange. He must be the man of the prophecy. The Whole scans the stolen memories from the angel- whose name had been Castiel, they are quick to discover- and finds this man's name is Dean Winchester and he is the Righteous Man, the holy man to shed blood in Hell.

The other things they find very nearly distract them from the Righteous Man speaking directly to them.

"Cas?" Dean Winchester asks cautiously.

The Righteous Man has nicknamed this angel- how _sweet_. The Whole is momentarily drawn away from their indignation at direct contact to mock this man.

"Cas?" the Whole sneers, using the mouth of the vessel. "Cas is… hmm, he's gone. He's dead!" the Whole explains happily, pausing to drink in the grief and pain on the Righteous Man's face before continuing. "We run the show now."

The Whole grabs the front of the Man's chest and throws him and the older man backwards. They both hit walls and rolling tables at high rates of speed and appear to be injured. The Whole delights in having caused these men injuries and decides to state what is obvious to them.

"This is going to be _so_ much fun."

Lucifer is enjoying himself quite a bit. Being stuck behind a mind-wall for months really does things to you.

After initially making Sam freak out (he should have seen his face, the little bitch), Lucifer follows the Winchesters back to Bobby's house and takes a seat on a chair in the middle of the room. Sam's eyes flicker toward him occasionally and every time he does it, his breathing rate increases just a bit and he looks just a _little _more crazy.

"Okay, but if you were still in the Cage, why would he drop you in this godforsaken hell-hole?" Dean snaps, agitated at Sam's certainty.

"It had to be a mess, Sam," Lucifer croons, and Sam reluctantly turns his head to face him. "Otherwise you wouldn't believe it was real."

Dean finally glances in the same direction Sam has been, and Lucifer sticks out his forked tongue at him, though he can't see. It gives Lucifer a tiny, childish satisfaction to do so.

"Wait, you mean you're seeing him _right now?_" Dean says, comprehension dawning on his face.

_Slow, aren't you_, Lucifer thinks cheerily. He knows full well that Dean is correct and Sam isn't in the Cage anymore, but if he can make Sam think that he never got out…. Well, life's just a big game, isn't it?

Sam nods in answer to Dean's question. "You know he's not real, right?" Dean insists.

Sam looks over to Lucifer, who spreads his arms in indignation. "He says the same thing about you," Sam whispers, looking back to Dean. Lucifer has a strong sense of elation at Sam's indecision.

Lucifer is going to have a _great _time.

When Dean finally finds Sam and brings him home to a burned-out shell, they panic. They don't know that Bobby had gotten out before the house went down.

Bobby is looking for Sam and Dean. They're in just as much danger as he is- when the Leviathans find out they weren't in the house, they'll be next on the list. He can't give up on finding them until they're with him, but at some point he realizes that he should wait to hear the inevitable police reports.

Within a few hours, the radio scanner crackles and announces, "Ambulance headed to Singer Salvage, 774 Highway 18, emergency called in from male, injuries including broken bones and possible concussion…"

"God _dammit_," Bobby mutters, revving the engine of his truck and shooting off toward Sioux Falls General. It's only been a couple hours since he rescued Jody Mills from the Leviathan doctors there, and Dean isn't aware about the monsters.

The police scanner continues after a few minutes. "Patients names Dean Smith and Samuel Wesson, headed to Sioux Falls General. Smith has broken leg and assorted minor injuries, Wesson nonresponsive…" Bobby pushes the accelerator down further and the speedometer jumps above 60 miles an hour.

He gets there within half an hour and, after changing into his FBI suit, finds Dean's room. He's asleep. Bobby breathes a sigh of relief- Sam is in a room across the hall.

God knows how they'll get out of this one, but at least they're all alive.

Three weeks later, when Dean reflects on all the events that occurred in the wake of Castiel's death, he wonders if it can't just be a dream that he will wake up from now.

Of course, he doesn't. And it's not really a surprise.

Sam woke up within a day of getting him home from the hospital. They're living in a small cabin that used to belong to Rufus- there's a combined living room and kitchen, two bedrooms, and a basement that's clearly been used for hunting-related activities. They dig out the stores of salt and ammunition rounds and begin preparing for the attack that will happen eventually.

Dean still has Cas' trenchcoat- he'd pulled it out of the lake. It's in the trunk of the Impala, tucked into a corner, a neatly folded bundle of tan fabric. He doesn't know why he kept it, really, but it's there; physically in the trunk, and always on his mind. He lets Sam and Bobby blame his distraction on the broken leg and the stress of facing unknowns, which is of course why he is so out of it, and _not because every time he closes his eyes, the bright blue ones look back at him; no, definitely not that._

But the day comes when Dean is left alone in the cabin, and the trenchcoat is still in the trunk of the car parked just outside, _and the blue eyes won't stop staring back at him, why won't they leave him alone?_ Dean was never strong against temptations, so he stands as best he can and hobbles out to his car as quickly as possible.

The trunk unlatches with a small click, and underneath a canvas bag of rock salt and a shotgun, a corner of the tan fabric peeks out at him. He lifts coat out of the truck and gently brushes the salt and the dust off it. Holding it under his nose, he is shocked when a drop of wetness falls onto it; he instinctively looks up into the treetops for rainclouds, but none are there. He's crying into a wad of fabric, which is impossible, because Dean Winchester doesn't cry, but his eyes don't seem to believe him, and _Cas, why did you have to die? _

Wiping the tears off his face angrily, he slams the trunk shut and realizes belatedly that the coat isn't in the trunk. Well, whatever. It'll just have to come inside then. He limps back over to the couch and flops down, still holding the coat in his hands. His right hand runs over one of the seams lightly, and Dean remembers the way the coat swished when Cas walked and the way the collar was never quite even on his shoulders.

There's no one else home, so what does Dean have to lose? Dean presses his face into the folded coat, and it smells exactly like he remembers Cas smelling; the leather of the Impala, and an undertone of burgers frying at a cheap diner, and an extra something else; something indefinable that made Cas, well, _Cas_. It smells like home, and Dean doesn't lift his face off the coat, but places it on the arm of the couch like a pillow.

And instead of having nightmares that night, Dean Winchester has dreams.

Sam opens the door of the cabin as quietly as possible- it looks like Dean is passed out on the couch, and Sam knows how hard it is for him to sleep nowadays and doesn't want to disturb the little rest he'll be getting. He closes the door and steps past the couch to the mini-fridge, which he opens and fills with more beer than he knows what to do with (but it'll be gone within three days with Dean and Bobby around).

Something catches Sam's eye as he turns back toward Dean. Not Lucifer, who's making Sam see shattering bottles and bats flying around the ceiling; no, something about Dean. He looks more closely and sees a lightly colored wad of fabric where a pillow would be. It's shaped strangely, and as Dean stirs in his sleep and shifts so his leg is more comfortable, a sleeve falls out of the bundle.

It's Cas' coat.

Sam involuntarily smiles at this. Sam had always known, of course, that Cas preferred Dean over him initially, but they grew closer; never as close as Dean had. It had always been more than a friendship between the two of them. Sam didn't think Dean had ever really noticed; it's nice to him to see Dean finally acknowledging that, but it's too late in any case.

Maybe this will take the nightmares away.

The Winchesters don't linger, either physically or mentally. Once the cast is off Dean's leg, they're back on the road, looking for jobs and trying to hunt the Leviathans down.

They don't know how to kill them, or hurt them, or slow them down in any way. There's a reason they were locked up in Purgatory, and the reason has become obvious in the first month since Castiel opened the door- they're ferocious killing machines with wood chippers for mouths. Bobby finally has to tell them just to take any other job they can find and _Leave the black-ooze monsters to me, idgits. _

They find a job in insert city name here. All the clues point to the presence of a kitsune, and Sam has a nasty feeling he knows which particular kitsune it might be, though he doesn't mention this to Dean. If it's really Amy Pond, he'll have to get to her before Dean can without Dean noticing.

Sam is doing late-night research on his laptop in another shitty hotel room and Dean is passed out drunk on his bed- just another normal night for them.

But something is different this time; Dean isn't as dead to the world as he normally would be. He's turning over in his sleep, muttering to himself, which Sam knows happened for a while just after he got out of hell, but it's different this time. He's more desperate, reaching for something in the darkness, and after a while Sam hears a distinct word from his brother. Well, not a word really, but a name.

"Cas."

Sam stares at his brother for a moment, wondering what he should do. Usually Dean wakes up from his nightmares on his own. He should've known losing Cas would just add to Dean's guilt and nightmare routine. Before he can decide to leave Dean alone, Dean thrashes out against the bed sheets, fighting off some invisible force and crying out for Cas. Sam hurries to Dean's side, shaking his shoulder in an effort to wake him. Dean snaps awake, sitting up and slashing the air with his knife in the same movement.

"Woah! Hey, Dean, calm down, it's just me," Sam says, taking the knife before Dean can do any real damage to either of them.

"Sam?" Dean mutters, fighting off a yawn as he stretches and blinks his eyes.

"You were having a nightmare," Sam says softly, more softly than he normally would, but he knows how much this would affect Dean compared to other times.

Dean's breath catches for a moment, then returns to normal as he looks at Sam, unimaginable pain behind his eyes. "I know."

"D'you want me to-?" Sam begins hesitantly, then stops himself. Dean doesn't know he saw him with the coat; probably better to keep it that way. "D'you want me to get you a drink or something?"

"Nah," Dean sighs. "Won't help. I'm just gonna… go for a drive. Help me clear my head." Dean grabs the keys and his leather jacket and heads out the door. Sam hears the Impala's engine start and fade into the distance, and he shakes his head sadly.

For the first time in months, Sam prays, not for himself, but for his brother- for someone, somewhere, to take pity on the two of them, and stop this madness; for someone to bring Cas back like he always did; for someone to make Dean happy again.

But Sam knows this is probably impossible.

Two months after Castiel died, Sam and Dean are on the run from the law- again- because the Leviathans thought it would be fun to impersonate them and kill a bunch of people while doing it. This means new badges, new names, new identities, and most of all- to Dean's extreme dissatisfaction- switching up the cars they drive. They can't drive the Impala anymore.

They move the arsenal to a different trunk for every job they work. Several things don't come with them from the Impala- Dean's tape collection and the army men in the ashtray, to name a couple- but one thing does travel with them that is not a weapon or any other useful thing. The trenchcoat reappears in the trunk of whatever car they're driving for the time being. Dean doesn't mention it and Sam pretends not to notice it under the bags of salt and the sharpened stakes.

There are memories connected to anything Cas leaves behind. Holding the coat, Dean can hear Balthazar saying _"I think you've confused me with your other angel; you know, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you?"_ and he knows Balthazar was probably joking but part of his mind also knows Balthazar wouldn't joke about his favorite brother that way and_ if he wasn't joking then I'm even more blind than they think I am. _

Dean is pulling off his shirt one day when he freezes and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He knows Sam is watching concernedly, he knows it shouldn't matter, but the handprint on his shoulder is still there, a reminder of what he could've had, branded into his skin. He doesn't want this, but he clings to it as one of the only things he has left from his best friend, _or maybe more than a best friend, I don't know anymore._

Seeing this brings a flood of memories back in.

"_I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."_

Dean hesitates, then places his left hand over the print and it doesn't match his hand because Cas' hands were always longer and thinner than his own, but Dean shifts his fingers to the spaces between the fingers on the print and they fit perfectly in the gaps, and Dean doesn't want these thoughts but _if I could've just held his hand once and told him what I thought-_

Dean hurriedly pulls on a clean shirt and doesn't look in a mirror for the rest of the day, at least not until he's completely wasted and it doesn't matter anymore.

They find a job in New Hampshire that takes them about a week to sort out- it's a wide-spread case of curses and accidents that turn out to have originated from demonic deals gone wrong. Well, more wrong than a normal deal, anyway.

When Sam and Dean finally capture the crossroads demon that has been arranging untimely ends for the various victims, said demon's boss appears. Dean swears violently at the sight of the more powerful demon.

"Nice to see you too, Winchester," Crowley says indifferently, snapping his fingers and causing the demon trap to burn away. The crossroads demon disappears nearly instantly.

"What the hell do you want, Crowley?" Sam asks bluntly.

"I want to help me help you help ourselves," Crowley says idly, picking a microscopic piece of lint off his sleeve. (Only Crowley knows that this is what he told Castiel at the beginning of their arrangement, but no one else needs to know that; it's his best pick-up line.)

"Use English, you fat fuck!" Dean snarls. Crowley raises his eyebrows but obliges.

"Simply put, you don't want the Leviathans killing all of human kind, and we don't want the Leviathans eating potential souls for us to torture. So really, we're all in the same boat." Crowley ignores the obvious scoffing and skepticism from the brothers and continues, "I am, after all, the King of Hell. Between my vast resources, you two blundering oafs, and your grumpy old fart, we might be able to get this done."

"Fuck off, Crowley," Dean growls, preparing to fill him with salt rounds.

"Why should we trust you?" Sam asks warily, clearly beginning to consider accepting the help. (He ignores the former King of Hell's remarks about Crowley- _He was always one of my favorites, you know, so cunning, he's really a one-of-a-kind as demons go. You know he's playing you, right? He's always playing you- _and allows Crowley to continue talking.)

"The Leviathans hate us as much as they hate you," Crowley insists. "They took out my best dog. They ate my tailor!" Sam and Dean trade glances at this, unable to decide whether to believe him.

"You tried to have us killed. More than once," Sam adds, remembering an incident during his time as a soulless automaton. "I'd call it betrayal, but you're not exactly a friend."

"I'm upset you think that way," Crowley whines, feigning hurt.

"You got Cas killed!" Dean snaps at him. Sam notices the way Dean can barely say the dead angel's name and the way his face goes pale but doesn't comment on it.

"You know, if darling Cassie had just _listened_ to me and _waited _to open Purgatory, none of this would have happened," Crowley says heatedly. "But _no_, he had to leave me out in the dust and take on all of godforsaken Purgatory _by himself_- no, Winchester, I didn't get your boyfriend killed, he killed himself!" Crowley rants, not seeing the way Dean's body has frozen, no longer moving and barely breathing.

"Just show up if you find anything helpful," Sam sighs, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder to get him moving away from Crowley.

Crowley's expression sours further at this. "Of course. That's all you ever use us non-humans for, isn't it? I know that's why Castiel came running to me for help in the first place, instead of you ungrateful bastards." Crowley disappears before Dean can grab him around the neck and strangle him.

Sam doesn't think they'll be seeing him again.

It's about four months after Castiel dies that Sam finally decides enough is enough and this can't go on anymore.

Dean's watching TV- well, not really _watching _TV, more staring at it blankly while he drinks himself into oblivion _again_. _Why can't he just _talk_ about it?_ _He needs to, he's going to wind up dead- _Sam grabs the bottle from Dean, who protests immediately.

"Aww, come on, Sammy, what the fuck?" Dean whines as Sam turns off the TV.

Sam sits down on the bed across from Dean and grabs his shoulders. "Dean, we need to talk." _And we're _going _to talk, God dammit, you're not getting away from me this time. _

"Ugh, Sam, go away," Dean groans, throwing himself back into the pillows piled on his bed.

"Look at me, Dean."

"Want to sleep, Sam," Dean mumbles into the pillows. "Go 'way. Talkin' later."

"Dean, _look. At. Me,_" Sam hisses angrily. Dean reluctantly lifts his head enough to so fix one bloodshot eye on Sam. Unfortunately for Dean, his reproachful gaze just made Sam angrier- _for God's SAKE, Dean, quit being so sorry for yourself and realize that there are other people that have problems!_

Sam closes his eyes and tries to collect his thoughts. "Dean," he begins in a calm voice, "we're talking now. And you know what we're talking about."

Dean grunts noncommittally, and Sam presses his advantage quickly. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"Don't know what you're talkin' about," Dean mutters.

"Drinking yourself unconscious every night, randomly wandering out to the car, refusing to look in mirrors when you pass them- oh, you think I wouldn't notice, but I know _you_, Dean," Sam interrupted Dean before he could protest. "I'm not _stupid_, Dean. First it was the coat, then the nightmares, then the handprint, you didn't think I would connect these but I did, Dean- we are talking about Cas, and we're talking about him _now_."

Dean shook his head desperately. "Can't. Won't. Not now, not about Cas."

"Then _what_, Dean?" Sam snaps. Dean doesn't answer. "Fine. Just tell me one thing, then." Dean won't look at him, but Sam asks the question anyway: "Why does this time matter so much?"

Sam knows Dean understands what he's saying- Cas has died multiple times for them, so many other people have died along with him, why does this one hurt more?

Dean slowly looks up at Sam and locks eyes with him. "You think you know why I do these things, Sam?" His voice is even now, as if all the alcohol has been drained out of his system by Sam's persistence. "Well, newsflash, dickweed- you don't. You don't understand… you could _never_ understand what it's like…" Dean stands and walks out the door to the car, and Sam settles himself for a night alone- again- when Dean walks back in and throws something onto his bed. It's the coat.

"You know, for as long as I've lived, I've never really had anything?" This isn't a question. It's a statement, and Sam knows that answering would just make Dean angry. "I haven't lived in a house since I was 4. Baby was Dad's until I got you from Stanford. I own the clothes on my back and the beer I drink- that's _it_. Same for you, except you got to have something for a while- you went to Stanford, you had an apartment, and a girlfriend, and your own life. And when Jess died, you could mourn for something that I never even got to have."

"Dean," Sam says quietly, but Dean continues, volume of his voice starting to build up.

"And you know what, Sam? You're right on part of it- Cas was more than just some angel, or some friend, or a best friend even, but I could never have that, because of the demons, and the angels, and the fucking Apocalypse and-" Dean turns away from Sam, takes a deep breath, and holds his hand out behind him. Sam understands this gesture and places the neatly folded coat into his hand. Dean takes it in both hands before turning back to Sam.

"So I kept the coat, Sam. And don't think I didn't try to hide it from you, because I did, but you can't even pretend to know why I kept it," Dean begins again, voice shaking with the effort of keeping it even.

Sam takes a risk and speaks now. "Then tell me why."

"Because- because-" Dean's eyes flicker around the room, then settle back on Sam, who is waiting either for the outburst of anger that is sure to follow or the sudden silence. "I as well as told him to fuck off, Sam!" Dean snaps, and he's on his feet, pacing endlessly. "We fucked him over so much harder than any of our friends or family, we owed him, and we just shoved him away!"

Sam can't even really deny this. They hadn't exactly been receptive to any of his plans. He has to try, though, for Dean's sake. "Dean, we couldn't have reasoned with him, you know that," Sam said reasonably. "The souls took him over."

"It's not just that," Dean says agitatedly. "It's that- we spent so much time together, and we never really said anything. I told him once, I said, 'Never change.' And that's about the closest I got, wasn't it?" Sam's confusion must show on his face, because Dean mutters under his breath, "To saying what I wanted to say."

_There _it is. The whole conversation seems to have revolved around this one point.

"You know, every night, he shows up in my nightmares. Sometimes he's like he was before the killing spree. Sometimes it's when he walks into the lake. Usually it's just him standing there. Just _standing_ there. Watching me," Dean says, his voice beginning to turn to that dull, depressed cadence he gets before he drinks himself to sleep.

"When he's standing there, I try to reach out to him, but I can never touch him. And I always ask him, 'Where have you been?' and he just says… He just says 'I was here. Where were you?'" Dean mutters, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes. Sam remembers Dean saying this to Cas just before Cas opened Purgatory. It had been true- Cas could've gotten to Dean any time he wanted. "And I remember- we pushed him away. I keep thinking, if we hadn't just cut him out, if we'd actually tried to help- he might've been okay. Might've put the souls back as soon as he had control of Heaven."

Dean and Sam sit in silence for a little longer, and Sam is just thinking that Dean is done for good, when Dean says, "I wish I could take back half of what I said to him."

"Dean, I… no, I mean, you can't think like that," Sam splutters, finally finding his voice from whatever pit it fell down.

Dean's shoulders are slumped visibly. Clearly, Dean has made his choice here- _yes, he _can_ think like that, and he will_.

Without speaking to Sam, or even looking at him, he strips off his boots and over-shirt and crawls under the covers on his bed, making sure he's turned away from Sam. Sam stands awkwardly, lifting the coat off the edge of the bed and walking to the opposite side of Dean's bed. Sam kneels and lays the coat next to Dean's head.

"I just want Cas back," Dean whispers brokenly.

"I know," Sam says, his heart breaking as he looks at Dean. "I know."

Three days later, while Dean is out looking at a corpse as FBI Special Agent Harrison, Sam calls Bobby and is greeted with a rough "What d'you want, idgit?"

"Ah, music to my ears," Sam teases, corners of his mouth turning up in a grin.

"Shut up," Bobby grunts. Sam can hear the fondness in his voice. "Really, though, what do you want? It's not as though I'm busy or anything."

This brings Sam up short. "Well, you're not busy, for one thing. You're probably watching soap operas instead of working on a case." Bobby huffs at him, basically just proving Sam right. "And… I wanted to talk about Dean."

"He's not there, is he?" Bobby's voice has a knowing tone to it. Sam wouldn't talk to Bobby about Dean if Dean was in earshot.

"No, he's looking at the body. Listen, something's happened…" Sam recounts the entire episode from three days prior- the anger, the drunkenness, the breakdown- and the entire back story to it- the coat, the handprint, the progressive drinking- while Bobby listens.

When Sam finishes, there is silence on the line for a few minutes. Bobby finally says, "Well, I'll be damned."

"It's a lot to process," Sam acknowledges.

"It's about damn time that idgit got his act together," Bobby mutters, voice crackling as the phone's signal wavers. In fact, the signal nearly drops out entirely. Sam hasn't moved. This isn't normal.

"Sam?" Sam starts as he realizes he's been standing silently for nearly a full minute.

"I'll call you back, Bobby," Sam says quickly, snapping the phone shut and drawing a gun. The lights have begun to flicker and the TV has turned itself on. Sam swears under his breath. _Angels_. Hadn't they done enough damage already?

The lightbulb nearest the door bursts in a sudden spurt of light, catching the figure silhouetted in the doorframe. It's an unfamiliar face- either a different angel or a new vessel for an old angel. The man standing in the door is about Dean's height but has a thinner build than Dean. Sam backs up, knowing full well there's no way he could defend himself.

"Oh, _please_, Sam Winchester," the angel scoffs, rolling his deep brown eyes. "If I'd wanted you dead, I could have destroyed you a hundred times over already. I am not here to harm you."

"Can't blame me for being careful," Sam replies, the slight tremor in his voice giving away his tenseness underneath the visage of being calm and collected.

"Would you _please _be a little more kind? After all, I saved your life once before," the angel says, sighing as if he regrets having done the deed.

"Wait…" Sam quickly racks his brains for any angel other than Cas that saved his life before. _Balthazar? No, he's dead too… Not Lucifer, not Raphael… So really, that only leaves-_

"Michael?" Sam says incredulously- after all, Michael is supposed to be in the cage with Lucifer (_and Adam, _Sam thinks with a twinge of guilt). But Sam is out- is it possible Michael and Lucifer could have gotten out too?

"One and the same. I suppose Dean told you about what happened after Anael attacked your parents in the past," Michael smirks, "seeing as you were dead at the time." When Sam doesn't reply, Michael adds emphatically, "You're _welcome, _by the way."

"Who's Anael?" Sam asks finally, ignoring Michael's flippant comment.

Michael rolls his eyes in exasperation. "They told me you were _intelligent_… Anael is the fallen angel who tried to kill your parents before you were born. I suppose you know her as Anna."

_Right._ Sam doesn't want to speak to Michael right now, but he has to know- "How did you get out of the cage?"

"Well, once you took Lucifer with you, it really wasn't that hard," Michael says in an offhand voice. Catching sight of Sam's shocked expression, Michael grins. "You didn't _really_ think Castiel just _forgot _your soul? Oh, no no no, Lucifer rode you out of the cage like an old, beaten horse."

Sam is still trying to process this when Michael continues, "I heard about poor old Cassie. It must be awful for you… and Dean." Something in Michael's voice sounds like a threat to Dean. Sam immediately shifts his stance and stands to his full height.

"What do you want?"

"Ooh… _Manners_, Sam. I want to help you get rid of the Leviathans. Also with your little problem." Sam stays silent. "Haven't you told Dean how bad it's gotten now? I mean, come _on_. My brother running around inside your skull can't be comfortable."

"Why do you want to help get rid of the Leviathans?" Sam highly doubts that Michael's intent is pure. He probably just wants to screw them like Crowley did.

"Because as much as I dislike you smelly meatbags…" Michael seems to catch himself and changes track. "You are, in the end, my Father's children, and I would hate to see you _all_ go."

"You want to keep us around to worship you." As soon as Sam says this, he knows it's true.

"Yes, I suppose. So for starters… I figure I should fix your little problem. The best I can do is fix your wall. Not permanent, but better than having Lucifer running the place, would you agree?" Michael says briskly, approaching Sam.

Sam wants nothing better than to say yes. Lucifer's been getting worse lately- preventing him from sleeping, mostly. The images have become more and more disturbing. Lucifer skins Dean alive while Sam watches, the buildings burn down around him, screaming and sirens and _what happens when I can't tell what's real and what's not?_

"Why are you doing this?" Sam asks in a very small voice. "You wouldn't have to fix me to help us with the Leviathans. You've got to have some kind of motive."

"I'm disappointed you think like that," Michael says, feigning hurt. "Let's just say… Seeing as you all stopped the Apocalypse and it didn't go _too_ badly, I've taken a liking to you. Even though you've shoved me into the Cage and let a civil war destroy Heaven and let Cas break the Leviathans out." This doesn't connect in Sam's mind- he and Dean, Cas, and Bobby basically destroyed Michael's plan for the Apocalypse.

It finally clicks. "Oh," Sam says quietly.

"What?" Michael snaps, disturbed by Sam's sudden understanding tone.

"You would've lost," Sam says quite certainly.

"That's ridiculous!" Michael's indignation confirms Sam's statement.

"That's it, isn't it? If we'd just let the Apocalypse happen, Lucifer would've beaten you," Sam persists. "So now you're helping us… as some kind of perverse thank-you?"

"Does it _matter_ why I'm helping you?" Michael snarls. "You should just be grateful that I am at all!" Sam holds up his hands to show that he means no disrespect (when in all reality, he means to be as disrespectful as possible). Michael sighs and continues in a calmer voice, "I think you'll appreciate this as a gesture of… alliance, anyway. Not friendship."

Michael clicks his fingers and a smaller man appears next to Sam. Sam catches him as he falls, and, turning him over, sees his half-brother's face. _Adam_. "What? I- why?" Sam stutters, at a loss for words.

"Well, it's hardly fair to leave him alone in the Cage, is it?" Michael comments, turning away from Sam as Sam lifts Adam and lays him across a bed in the hotel room. "His soul's nowhere near as badly damaged as yours. You may remember why- you had this strange habit of giving yourself up to protect him in the Cage."

Sam's head hurts. He sits on the edge of the bed Adam is laying on and holds his head in his hands. He can hear Lucifer- _You think dear old Mikey is gonna save you, Sammy? He can't beat me. He _never _could_- but tries to ignore him, hoping against hope Lucifer will go away. "I don't remember that," Sam mutters as a way of distracting himself from Lucifer's sneering comments.

"Mm," Michael hums in affirmation. "Lucifer would always choose one of you while I was healing, and would… _amuse _himself. You definitely came out worse. And I couldn't stop him from riding your vessel out, I was injured and trying to protect you and your brother's souls, and when Castiel opened the door… He couldn't tell the difference. I'm not blaming him," he adds as Sam opens his mouth to defend Cas, "I'm just saying."

Lucifer's sneering is directed at Michael now- _Ooh, he thinks he's _so _high and mighty, I swear, I'd like to rip his pretty little face off_- and Sam is able to focus a little better. "Can you… Can you bring him back?" Sam asks hesitantly. "Cas, I mean."

Michael's face takes on an ancient sadness, one Sam remembers seeing on Cas' face from time to time- every time another one of his brothers or sisters died, or from time to time, when he was staring at Dean, thinking no one could see him. He looked sad when no one watched. He broke down when the cameras weren't on him. "No, I can't," Michael sighs. "I can't rebuild his vessel, much less his grace. I understand why you want him back," Michael continues. "He was your friend, after all. And more so to Dean. And he was my brother."

Lucifer is screaming at Michael now- _You know who else is your brother, you wingless piece of shit? _I'm _your brother, I've been your brother since the beginning and you _never _cared about me, not once!_- and his head feels like it's being devoured by fire, and Sam presses his hands harder against his temples and wishes Lucifer would just leave, and a prayer starts in his brain automatically, _Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil_-

Michael is instantly at Sam's side, covering Sam's hands with his own, and Lucifer's screaming in his head fades along with the pain. "He won't bother you any longer," Michael says quietly, satisfied by the results of his work.

The door to the room opens and Sam knows it's Dean, either by the way Michael instantly throws his hands away from Sam or by the exclamation of "Get the fuck away from him!" that follows a second later.

"Dean, it's okay," Sam says tiredly. Lucifer is gone now and he just wants to sleep. Dean disregards this and walks quickly over to Sam kneeling next to him and checking to see he's really okay before rounding on Michael.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean snaps at the archangel, who only raises his eyebrows.

"A friendly party," Michael says casually. "Only fixing your brother's head, don't mind me."

"He's Michael," Sam mutters from behind Dean, who half-turns so as to keep Michael in his line of sight.

"But then, how-?"

"Later," Sam groans, flopping sideways onto his bed. Dean finally notices Adam laying unconscious next to Sam, but, looking more closely at Sam, decides not to ask questions.

Sam jostles the bed just enough that Adam stirs, then opens his eyes blearily. "Dean?" he asks in a very small, quiet voice. "Wha's goin' on?"

Michael smirks just a bit. "I'll be in touch," he says, walking towards the door Dean left open. "Feel free to call if you find anything _worthwhile_." Michael disappears.

"Um… yeah, thanks, asshat," Dean mutters before kneeling next to Adam. Adam's head turns to meet him.

"Wha's goin' _on_," Adam insists, slurring his words like he's drunk.

"Wish I knew, kid. Go back to sleep," Dean answers before going back around to Sam. "You can't sleep here, Sammy," Dean says, a little more loudly than Sam appreciates, but Sam allows Dean to heave him over his shoulder and deposit him onto his own bed. Dean removes Sam's shoes and puts them next to the door to the bathroom. Adam doesn't have any shoes- just a plain white T-shirt and old jeans. They'll have to get him some clothes if he's going to live with them. Dean stares at his brothers for a moment before grabbing a beer from the mini-fridge and sitting in a chair across from the two beds.

He's not Cas, but at least they've gotten someone back. Dean says a silent _thank-you_ in his head and hopes Michael hears it.

When Michael takes Lucifer from Sam's head, he freezes time briefly to do so. Lucifer is still screaming at Michael while no time passes, making sure he hears every word.

"Daddy always loved _me_ best, Mikey!" he shrieks maliciously, trying to cover his own personal pain by creating it in his older brother. "_I _was the brightest and the best of Heaven, and that's why you were _so_ glad to help him cast me down, because now you can finally shine the brightest!"

Michael, residing in Sam's mind for the time being, pauses in the struggle to look Lucifer in the eye. "How can you think that, brother?" he asks, looking genuinely hurt. "You are my brother. I will always love you."

Lucifer freezes when Michael says this, allowing Michael to push him further out of Sam's vessel. Can he really believe that after all this time, one little statement would convince him of his love?

Lucifer resumes fighting when he realizes he's on the boundary and will be pushed out if he doesn't hold his ground. But Michael is going to win this time. Lucifer is nearly over the boundary and a very real fear overtakes him. "Brother, please," he breathes, "Don't make me go back to the Cage."

Michael hesitates, then says, "I won't make you go back to the Cage, Lucifer." Relief so strong he can practically taste it floods through Lucifer's being. "But you only have two options. For one, you can go back to Hell, but be free of the Cage. The other, you can come up to Heaven, but only if you stay by my side at all times."

Lucifer gapes at his brother. Can he be serious? Can he finally go home after all these years? "I can go… home?" Lucifer whispers.

"Yes, brother," Michael replies. "You can come home."

Michael is not the least bit surprised when Lucifer makes his choice.

Sam wakes up about an hour later, bitches at Dean for letting him sleep that long, then tells Dean to _go sleep while I look over the files from the morgue_. So instead of pulling the "big brother" card and making Sam sleep longer, Dean does exactly what Sam tells him to.

The nightmares are different now. It's not just Cas looking at him, and it's not the lake; now, it's Cas in Dean's position, saying all the terrible things he said.

'_You are a child, you know that?' Cas' voice echoes slightly as he yells at Dean in the study of Bobby's house. 'All I want is to stop Raphael. Why does it _matter_ how I go about doing _my business? _You undermine me at every turn, Dean. It has to _stop.'

_Dean wants to yell back at Cas, make him see sense, make him understand how stupid he sounds, but he can't, not now that he knows the real reason Cas goes to these extreme lengths to protect him and his brother. 'I know.' Of course, this isn't enough. 'I'm sorry, Cas, I really-'_

_If it is possible for dream-people to interrupt you, this one does, because dream-Cas cuts across his apology. 'No you're _not! _You always say you're sorry, but you _never mean it.' _Dream-Cas steps closer to Dean, anger blazing in his eyes. 'Why can't you just see what I'm doing?'_

'_I do,' Dean says desperately. 'I see now, I can see now, and I'm _sorry_, I really am, please, Cas-' Tears start streaming down Dean's face as he tries to convince Cas of his loyalty, and he can't help thinking- is this how it was for Cas all those months ago?_

Dean bolts up in his bed, noticing real tears streaming down his face. Sam looks around and sees Dean sitting up. "Dean, are you-?"

"No," Dean whispers, grabbing the keys to the car and nearly running out the door, disregarding the need for shoes or a coat. He unlatches the trunk, grabs the coat, and closes the trunk again. After climbing into the backseat (which had taken some time, because the cold had started to set into his hands and had made it difficult to unlock the car door), he wraps the coat around his shoulders and starts to sob.

Will the nightmares ever end?

Sam finds Dean the next morning, curled up in the backseat of their current car with Cas' old coat as a kind of blanket. Dean doesn't bother to move when Sam opens the door- he's already awake, staring at the back of the passenger seat with curiously blank eyes.

"Dean," Sam whispers. It's nearly three in the morning and Sam doesn't want to wake up their cranky neighbors. Dean glances at him, shame showing in his eyes, then his eyes unfocus again and he's staring at the seat back like it will show him the secrets of the universe.

"Dean, it's gonna be okay," Sam says quietly, and Dean looks at him, clear doubt present in his face. "I'm going to find him."

Dean sits up quite suddenly, Cas' coat falling off his shoulders. "How?"

"I wish I knew," Sam answers reluctantly, knowing that it's not a good answer. "But I'll do my best."

From that day, Sam carries a picture he found of Jimmy Novak in his jacket pocket. When they're working cases, talking to people about various things, he finishes with the same question. "Have you seen this man?"

Most people don't recognize him at all. The few that do say something like "Isn't he that activist who killed all those people?" and usually follow that with a snide comment like "You _still_ haven't caught him?"

This isn't very helpful to either Sam or Dean- Sam because he's trying to find Cas, not get criticized at his lack of success, and Dean because every time someone says that, he ends up swearing under his breath the whole way back to the hotel.

Adam had taken a couple days to get over the fact he was back from the dead, and a couple more to get used to the year 2012, but he was soon acclimated enough that Sam and Dean let him out of the hotel room as long as he had a gun with him. (It's not like he's Captain America; he was only out of commission for 3 years, not 70.)

Dean isn't very happy with letting Adam do much on his own, but allows it. Since he's pretty much gotten over trying to protect Sam from everything, he's transferred this protective obsession onto Adam. Adam pretty much ignores it when Dean tells him to stay out of trouble and _make sure what you're shooting isn't human before you do. _Sam is the mediator in all situations now.

They take Adam back to the cabin and teach him how to shoot, and both Sam and Dean are unpleasantly reminded of the first time they did this; although, that wasn't really Adam, just a ghoul, but the way Adam responds to their teaching is so similar that while both Sam and Dean know the other is thinking about the time before the fall, neither addresses it. Adam learns how to make salt rounds and stitch wounds and sharpen machetes, and he is soon just another hunter, another Winchester out to fight back against the world. For the first time in 29 years, two brothers become three.

Of course, Adam is never as close to either Sam or Dean as they are to each other. He'd had a family and a regular life before the ghouls came, and he misses them- his mother and his friends. Dean wants to give him the "we-are-Winchesters-and-this-is-what-we-do" speech, but Sam holds him off and instead pulls Adam aside one day while Dean is researching their case with Bobby. "You can't go back, Adam," Sam tells him. "You know that, right?"

Adam is 23 now, but he looks like the 19-year-old they met in the diner (but really, that was the ghoul), or the 20-year-old that Zachariah tricked into being Michael's vessel. Young. Angry. And, behind his green-gray Winchester eyes, scared. But Winchesters don't show fear.

When Adam answers, he sounds about 300 years old. "I know."

Sam thinks, _it's good to have him back and out of the pit, but we _really _didn't need another Dean around here_.

Dean misses Cas.

It's stupid to think about, because it makes him sound like a 15-year-old girl, but the fact remains that he does.

Dean's never really prayed. He knows Sam does- or he used to- but Dean could never stick with the idea of a higher power. Once the existence of a God was proven to him, he resorted to being angry with God rather than praying in any way.

The idea presents itself fully-formed in his head before he can _really _think about it. It's a long shot. Hell, there's next to zero chance it will work. But… it's worked before, hasn't it?

Dean walks out of the cabin and looks up into the night sky.

"Cas?" Dean's voice, rough and gravelly from misuse, breaks slightly and Dean clears his throat.

"Um… Castiel, I, uh-" Should he be doing this differently? Cas always used to come when he called, but what if this time he needs something more official? Maybe he should find something.

Words present themselves in Dean's head- he'd been researching prayers one day and had come across a basic prayer to guardian angels- but Dean disregards them, grimacing slightly as he remembers the words. They'd been mushy and really rather girly. He doesn't want Cas hearing him say that.

"Castiel, angel of the Lord, I- uh, it's Dean," Dean begins again, wincing at how _stupid _he sounds. "I mean, you know that, obviously. You're all-knowing or whatever. But that's not what I wanted to say…" Dean flounders for a minute while he tries to compose his thoughts. "I just… I wanted to ask…

"Please, Cas," Dean breathes. "Just… come back. For me. One more miracle, Cas, that's all I'm asking."

No one responds. Of course not. There's no one to listen anymore anyway. But Dean wants to be heard.

"You always came back before!" Dean shouts desperately. "Why can't you do it this time?"

Dean's voice echoes out over the hillsides as he lowers his head, hands curled into fists, fingernails pressing into his palms and drawing blood in an effort not to cry, because he has already cried over this angel and he doesn't want to do it again. He vaguely notices that he's bitten through his cheek and angrily spits out a wad of blood before storming back into the cabin.

_Why won't Cas listen to me? _Dean won't acknowledge that the only thing that would keep Cas from coming to him is that he's gone.


	2. Chapter 2: Cross-Pollination

Betrayed.

That's how Dean feels when Sam gets a lead on Cas and won't let Dean go with him.

They'd found a faith healer who goes by the name Emmanuel. Stories of his miracles had reached the brothers through an old friend of Bobby's- Emmanuel had cured his cancer- and Sam had evidently decided that it was important enough for him to check out. Dean has a feeling about this one, and he somehow _knows_ it's not Cas, but he's still pissed at Sam.

"What the hell, Sam!" Dean yells through the phone while Adam watches him warily.

"That's _exactly _why I didn't want you to come," Sam says exasperatedly. "You're too emotional right now. If it's something, I'll tell you where I am-"

"I'm supposed to know where you are _all the time_," Dean seethes, cutting Sam off. He hears Sam sigh and the engine of his rental car accelerate.

"If you don't tell me where you are, I'll trace your rental car back to the company."

"I'm going west, Dean," Sam says evasively. "Look, it'll only be a day or so, I'll call you tonight if it's good enough that you should come out."

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose in aggravation. "Jesus Christ, Sam," he snaps.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I've got to drive. Don't get Adam killed." The line disconnects.

Dean throws his phone onto the couch in the cabin and starts pacing. "Dean?" Adam asks hesitantly.

Dean sighs and sits on the couch, most of his anger at Sam evaporating. "Yeah."

"Why are you looking for Cas if he's dead?"

The question is well-intentioned. Hell, it doesn't even have that snide tone to it that Dean hates. It's an innocent question, and the more innocent it is, the more it hits Dean at his core.

"Because… because if there's even the chance he's still alive somewhere," Dean tries, "I have to try. And with Cas, there's always the chance."

"You could say the same thing about you or Sam," Adam observes, a wry smile catching the corner of his mouth.

"Any of us, really," Dean agrees.

Sam arrives back at the cabin in less than a day. Dean greets him at the door with a gruff, "Well?"

Sam shakes his head. "Nothing. It wasn't a lead after all." Dean tries not to show how disappointed- no, crushed- he is by this, and shrugs slightly before walking away to grab a beer.

Bobby strolls out of the basement, wiping black goo off a machete. "Well, if you two- three- idgits are done with that," Bobby corrects himself, "can you get your asses to the basement and help me clean up the ancient Purgatory monster that's splattered all over the walls?"

"You found a way to hurt them?" Adam asks, turning quickly.

"Well… slow them down, more like," Bobby admits, throwing the machete onto the table and beckoning them to follow him. Sam, Dean, and Adam all look at each other briefly, then follow Bobby into the basement, where they are met by a burst of maniacal laughter.

Dean sighs. "Bobby, what the hell."

"He was headless! For a bit, at least…" Bobby kneels by the trail of black ooze on the floor. "See? I put his head here. And he reattached it somehow."

"Then how is that any help at all?" Dean argues, becoming more frustrated.

"It's something, which is more than nothing-"

"A box!" Sam says suddenly, causing both Dean and Bobby to look at him like the bats in the belfry had become visible. Adam's face is slightly confused, then clears as he understands. Sam sprints back up to the cabin, taking the stairs three at a time.

"What… the… hell," Dean says slowly.

"Sam thinks if we can just keep its head separated-" Adam begins, before Sam reappears at the bottom of the stairs and continues Adam's thought.

"-then he won't be able to put it back on. So-"

"-we need some way to keep it away, which is where-"

"-the box comes in," Sam finishes.

"Nerds," Dean mutters. "I hate it when you two do that."

"It's an idea," Bobby shrugs, slicing the Leviathan's head off again as it taunts him. _(I'm more evil than anything you've ever seen! I'm even worse than Lex Luthor!) _"Give it here," he grunts, holding the severed head out by its hair. Sam holds the box under Bobby's hand and he drops the head in, shaking bits of Leviathan off his fingers as he did so.

"Yeah, that's great," Dean says, looking surly, "but what are we going to _do _with it?"

Adam and Sam look at each other. "We could try burning it," Adam suggests. Sam turns to Dean and makes a gesture that clearly says _It wouldn't hurt_.

"You two get on that. I'll help Bobby clean up this mess." Bobby looks up at him, surprised, but Adam and Sam don't notice, already on their way up the stairs and discussing how they should go about their new project.

The door to the basement door closes, and Bobby immediately abandons all pretense of cleaning. "What do you need, really?"

Dean glances up from where he's been scraping Leviathan ooze off the floor and tries to look innocent. "Come on, Bobby, I want to help you clean up. God knows your back can't take much more."

"No you don't," Bobby accuses him. "You wanted to get away from Sam for some reason."

"If you'd lived with him your whole life, you'd want to get away too," Dean says evasively.

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Well, if you ever want to stop pretending that _you're fine_, I'll be here."

Dean goes out for a supply run a few days later. He's been cramped in the house and doesn't want to hear Sam and Adam discussing Star Trek or whatever for the 300th time.

Dean's driving the Impala again. Dean had gone to get it as soon as they found out the FBI thinks they're dead- apparently, after having dug up their "corpses" from the explosion back at the police station four years ago, they've drawn conclusions that the two criminals were impersonating them. It's good to be back- the other cars they'd been renting just weren't cutting it.

He's heading down the interstate when he thinks he sees something flash through the woods on his right. When he looks, there's nothing there.

_Seeing things already. And you tell Sam you're sleeping fine. _

Dean growls slightly and revs the engine. 70, 80, nearly 90 miles an hour now. Escaping his nightmares. His thoughts. But he can't escape his mind, because it's there in the car with him.

Something springs out from between the trees. Dean can't stop.

Squealing tires. Shattering glass.

Dean doesn't think he hit whatever it was, but fat lot of good it's done him.

Dean blinks blood out of his eyes and tries to turn his head toward the road. He's in the opposite side ditch, thankfully not flipped over, and he wants to see what in the ever-loving _fuck _got him here. No go. He's probably got head trauma. Definitely whiplash. Some kind of cut above his eyes, because he can't see worth shit.

Dean disregards the screaming tendons in his neck and turns his head toward the road. What the fuck is it?

Not what- who, because it looks like a person. A man.

"_Jesus_", Dean breathes, struggling to get to his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans. On the way to get to it, he discovers several other injuries (broken ribs- he'd forgotten how much those hurt- and a few shattered fingers). Dean fumbles with his phone for a moment before managing to open it and speed-dial Sam.

Sam answers on the first ring. "Dean? What in the hell is-"

"Sam. Car crash. Bad," Dean groans, noticing an increase in pain and blackness beginning to seep into the edges of his vision. "On the interstate. Hurry."

Dean can hear Sam grabbing his jacket and a pair of car keys. "Why the fuck didn't you call the squad?"

Dean frowns slightly. "Not _that_ bad, Sammy. Just… think I hit someone… or maybe I didn't… I don't know."

"Okay, okay, I'm on the way," Sam says. "I'm giving the phone to Adam, keep talking, okay?"

"Yeah." Dean knows he'll probably black out before they can start their car. "Yeah. Sam. Okay."

There's a pause while Sam hurriedly explains to Adam and Bobby what's going on, then Adam's voice is on the phone. "Dean? You still there?"

Dean can hear Sam saying heatedly, "He better still be there!" and Dean chuckles slightly, then winces. _Ribs. Right._

"Hey, Dean, I had a question for you anyway. So I want you to answer it."

"Okay." It hurts too much to think.

"How do you kill a rugaru?"

"Um…" Dean struggles to remember. "Fire?"

"Are you sure? I need you to be sure about that."

_Why does he care so much? _"Fire. Yeah."

"Good," Adam encourages him. "How about a vampire? Is it a stake in the chest, like all the stories say?"

"No," Dean says, certain on this answer. "It's… you behead it."

Dean is distracted from Adam's next question in the interrogation by the sight of the man in the road. He's conscious now and struggling to get up, but he can't get the energy. Maybe he's injured. Maybe he's just tired. Funny, he looks fairly familiar…

"Dean?" Adam's voice is still in the background. "Dean, come on, talk to me."

"Tell Sam, I think- I think I know the guy I hit. Or maybe didn't hit," Dean mumbled.

Adam relays this information to Sam, then waits for a moment. "He wants to know what makes you think so."

The man is on his hands and knees now, but falls again into the pavement. "Don't hit him when you get here," Dean says vaguely. "He's in the road."

"Dean, that's not an answer to the question," Adam snaps.

The man's face turns toward the light. Dean's vision is blurry, obscured by both the threat of unconsciousness and blood, but he really _does _look familiar…

"Dean!"

"He looks… an awful lot like Cas," Dean manages, before the phone slips out of his numb fingers onto the floor of the car.

Flashes. That's all he remembers.

Sam prying the door off the Impala.

The whine of the engine as they sped back to the cabin.

Adam and Bobby carrying the man in the road inside behind himself and Sam. They'd brought him along, for some reason.

Blankets. Warm water. Sam's hands stitching the cut on his forehead.

The feeling of painkillers in his bloodstream. Then, unconsciousness.

Sam is pacing back and forth in the cabin. He's washed Dean's blood off his hands- not for the first time- and refuses to calm down. Adam thinks that maybe he should be more worried, because that's what brothers do, but Bobby doesn't look as worried as Sam, so he decides that he's fine for now.

"Sit _down_, idgit," Bobby finally tells Sam. Sam shoots him a patented bitch-face before continuing to pace. "Yer pacin' ain't gonna make Dean wake up faster," Bobby insists.

Sam sighs and stops briefly. "I know."

"We gotta give 'em time, Sam," Bobby says soothingly. "They always bounce back, you know Dean- he was on his feet two weeks after breakin' his leg."

"Are you gonna go look closer at them?" Adam asks Sam. "Dean looked like he'd be fine, but the other one-"

"I'll go back in a few, I just… need to take a walk." Sam starts out the door, then pauses and grabs the keys to Bobby's truck. "I'm gonna go get the car," he explains. "Dean'll kill me if I don't."

Bobby and Adam glance at each other. Adam thinks that maybe Sam is overreacting a little. "Are they always like that?"

"Idgits," Bobby growls under his breath. He picks up another beer and heads toward the room where Dean and the other man are lying very still. "I'm gonna check on them. Dean was lookin' like he was gonna wake up, and we can't have that for a little while."

Adam nods and Bobby heads off. Adam wonders if all families are like this.

Of course, most families don't fight monsters every day.

When Dean fights his way back to the surface the first time, he doesn't know where he is or why he _hurts _so much. He decides he doesn't really care and lets the current pull him under again.

The second time, his curiosity is pricked and he knows he's in Bobby's cabin, but why he's in bed in the middle of the day is beyond him. It's too much work to find out. He sleeps this time.

The third time, he remembers everything. The flash in the woods. The man in the road. The crash.

Dean turns his head toward the door. It's open. He can see the back of Sam's head over the couch. He catches part of his speech and realizes he's talking to Bobby and Adam. "…and honestly, I don't know what to do about Cas. Dean'll wake up soon enough and he'll recover in time, but Cas… Well, it's a wonder he could get anywhere at all."

"Did Dean actually hit him?" Adam's voice, from an unseen source asks.

"No, it didn't look like it. But he was so injured… it was hard to tell, at the time."

_Who are they talking about?_ They'd called someone 'Cas' and talked about his recovery…

The man in the road, he'd looked like Cas, but that was just because Dean was delirious at the time…

And they'd brought him back with them, but _surely_ they hadn't kept him here?

Dean turns his head in the other direction and sees the man from the road. He's facing away from Dean.

It's easy to see how you could mistake him for Cas. He has the coal black hair, but it's long- nearly shoulder-length- and tangled, as though he hasn't washed it for several days. He is wearing what looks like one of Dean's older T-shirts and a pair of ancient jeans that could belong to anyone in the cabin. Hell, even the rest of him looks like Cas- long, thin fingers, small in build, yet he gives the appearance of being able to take down men twice his size.

The man stirs and turns his head toward Dean. Dean gasps and shoots up, only to fall back in a haze of pain from his mending ribs.

_Cas._

Sam spends the next hour or so explaining what happened after Dean called them. Dean dimly registers that his ribs aren't broken, just bruised, but Dean thinks bitterly that it sure feels like they're broken.

"And for once, your hospital… thing helped us, because imagine if we'd gone to the hospital with the two of you, you're supposed to be dead and Cas is on the FBI's Most Wanted list," Sam continues. Dean nods slightly to show he's hearing what Sam is saying, though he hasn't really been listening. Sam knows this. Dean doesn't really consider that much. He's too busy watching Cas sleep.

"Anyway… Dean." Dean turns his head toward Sam, because this sounds important. "It's good that you're awake. We weren't sure for a bit, but…" Sam trails off and Dean feels a twinge of regret that he allowed this to happen, that he made Sam worry. He isn't supposed to do that.

"Cas, though, we're still not sure. He hasn't even stirred since we brought you guys back. Bobby's worried…" Sam hesitates, then plunges on, "Bobby's worried he might not wake up. That he'll fall into a coma." Dean doesn't show any outward signs of emotion, but the blood drains out of his face and he turns back to watch Cas sleeping.

"I'm sorry, Dean." Dean ignores him and his eyes follow the rise and fall of Cas' chest. "I wish we could help."

"I know," Dean says quietly, not turning from Cas. "I just don't want to lose him again."

Sam rests his hand on Dean's shoulder, then leaves, closing the door behind him. Dean can hear him telling Adam and Bobby that Dean wants to be left alone right now. It's not a lie, exactly. He wouldn't mind the company, but they would want to talk to him. Cas isn't talking. He's great company at the moment.

It's gotten a bit darker. The sun is approaching the horizon Dean can see out the window on the other side of Cas. Dean's eyes roam over Cas' face, taking in every detail: the way his eyebrows pinch slightly in the middle as though he's thinking, the little curve right at the end of his nose, the stubble on his chin that simply serves to make him look that much more innocent. Dean wishes he could see Cas' eyes, but his eyes are closed right now, and not opening any time soon.

It's a bit surreal, having Cas back but somehow not having him at all. Dean wants Cas to open his eyes, fix him with that intense stare, and make his usual dry comments. He can practically hear them now- _You need to drive more carefully, Dean. It is not good for one's health to drive so recklessly_. He would probably respond with, _You shouldn't step in front of moving cars, you dumb son of a bitch._ Dean's mouth hitches up in a slight grin. It's all so easy to imagine.

That is, of course, if he wakes up at all.

"_Bobby's worried he might not wake up. That he'll fall into a coma." _

No. That's just unacceptable. Dean knows that if this happens, he won't stop until he makes Cas wake up again. But for the moment, all they have is suspicion.

He could still wake up. _He has to. _

Cas doesn't fall into a coma, but he doesn't wake up, either. He just… sleeps. For days. Dean can't really go anywhere, and he wouldn't even if he could. He hasn't been talking much, only when he needs to, taking the food Bobby and Sam bring him and listening to Adam talk about a hunt he and Sam took care of.

Cas stirs occasionally, shifting his legs or turning his head. Whenever this happens, Dean watches him more closely for a time.

Dean is healed well enough in a week that he isn't confined to bed. He takes this newfound freedom by asking Sam to bring a chair next to Cas' bed. Sam rolls his eyes a tiny bit but brings him the chair anyway.

It's late at night about ten days after the accident. Everyone in the cabin is asleep- well, everyone except Dean. He hasn't really slept since he regained consciousness.

For no reason he can find (maybe it's the sleep deprivation), Dean starts talking to Cas.

"You know, you could wake up any time now." Dean clears his throat and continues, "I mean, it's been ten days. Don't you think that's enough sleep? Although, I suppose you've never really slept before…" His voice catches in the back of his throat as Cas shifts in his sleep, seemingly in response to Dean's voice.

"I'm just glad you're back, you know?" Dean's voice is rough again, and he stops for a moment. "And it'd be a bitch move for you to cop out right after you get back, so, don't, okay?"

Cas stirs and mumbles something Dean doesn't quite catch.

"Cas?" Could he be waking up? "Cas, I didn't hear you, what'd you say?"

Cas doesn't respond, so Dean keeps talking to him.

"Well, I _was _going to tell you something that you might like, but I guess, if you won't wake up…" Dean stops quite suddenly as Cas turns his head, blinks a few times, and stares up at Dean with his clear blue eyes.

"Dean?" Cas asks weakly.

"Hey, Cas," Dean says, a huge smile overtaking his face. "It's good to see you, man."

"Dean, I… Why are you holding my hand?"

Surprised, Dean looks down and finds that he's intertwined his fingers with Cas'. "Um… well, I…" Dean untangles his fingers from Cas' while he fumbles for an explanation, Cas looking up at him expectantly.

Dean is still trying to find words when Sam opens the door, rubbing his eyes with one of his massive hands. "Dean? I thought I heard you-" Sam blinks a few times when he sees Cas, awake. "Cas!"

"Sam," Cas says evenly, trying to sit up and grimacing.

Dean automatically puts his hand on Cas' shoulder, pushing him back down onto the mattress gently. "Don't," he murmurs, so Sam can't hear him. "You'll hurt yourself." Cas locks eyes with Dean again and Dean tries to make him understand why he's acting this way without speaking.

Sam stares between the two of them, nonplussed, excuses himself with a quick, "Well, it's good to see you Cas, I'm gonna go back to sleep," and nearly runs into the door frame in his efforts to get out of the room quickly.

Cas stares up at Dean. "What happened?"

"I thought you could tell me," Dean replies, slightly disappointed. "You just kind of jumped out in front of my car. By the way, asshole, thanks for that," Dean continues, trying to sound normal, snarky and sarcastic. "First you get me into a car crash, and then I thought you were dead…" Dean's voice cuts off again and he tries to hide his emotion.

"I… apologize, Dean," Cas says slowly, head titling almost imperceptibly as he tries to comprehend this change in Dean. "I didn't intend to have you injured."

"I know you didn't," Dean says quickly, not wanting Cas to blame himself for that, at least.

"I don't remember… I was in the road, and I saw a car in the ditch, but I couldn't get up," Cas muses, looking up at the ceiling, clearly thinking hard.

"I know, Cas, I was there for that part," Dean tells him, shifting slightly.

"I suppose… it was fate," Cas decides finally, looking back to Dean.

"What was fate?" Dean asks him gently, thinking that Cas probably has a concussion and he shouldn't be too scrutinizing of his mind's process at the moment.

"That the car I stepped in front of… would be yours," Cas explains, glancing away from Dean. A slight blush crept over Cas' cheeks. _He's _embarrassed! _You _cannot _let this one go, man_- But Dean lets it go, for now, because he doesn't want to stress Cas right now.

Dean gets up to leave, pausing at the door. "Hey, um, Cas, do you need anything?"

Cas shakes his head and settles back into his blankets. Dean turns to the door. As he's going out, he hears a small voice say, "Dean?"

Dean turns back. Cas is still looking at him, blue eyes shining in the darkness. "Yeah, Cas?"

"Can you…" He gestures to the chair beside his bed. Dean understands what he's trying to say. _Stay with me? _

"Yeah," Dean whispers. He clears his throat and says slightly louder, "Yeah, Cas, no problem."

Dean sits back in the chair and pulls Cas' covers up a little higher over his chest.

"Thanks," Cas mumbles, already halfway asleep. Dean smiles a little bit, moving so his ribs won't bother him if he falls asleep here.

Cas falls asleep in less than five minutes, but Dean waits a while longer to make sure he's actually asleep before wrapping his hand around Cas' again.

"Dean," Sam's voice enters his consciousness. Dean disregards it. Not important. Sleep is more important.

"Dean, get up, _now_," Sam's voice says more insistently, and Dean blearily opens his eyes.

Something's wrong, Dean can tell instantly. Adam and Bobby seem to be hurriedly packing things into old duffel bags, but only what can't be replaced- spell and lore books and the like. Dean straightens and shakes Cas' shoulder gently. Cas' eyes snap open. "What's going on?" Dean asks, standing to begin helping.

Sam shakes his head. "I'll explain after we get out. Help Cas get to the car."

"We're _leaving?_" Dean exclaims, helping Cas into a sitting position. "I thought we were safe here!"

"Apparently not," Sam mutters, running to help Bobby lift a particularly heavy bag.

Dean turns back to Cas. "I know this is a bad time," Dean says quickly, "but do you have any of your angel-powers left? Like, could you zap us somewhere?"

It's not entirely unexpected when Cas answers in the negative. "I think it's gone permanently."

Dean sighs and lets Cas hook an arm over his shoulders before lifting him into a standing position, ignoring the screaming protests from his ribs. "Can you walk, at least?"

"Yes. I believe so."

"Alright, come on," Dean says, gritting his teeth. Cas can't walk fast, but it's better than having to carry him. Sam and Adam are loading the last few things they need into Bobby's truck. Someone's already started the Impala's engines. Dean reaches out and opens the back door to settle Cas in when he hears it.

The shriek of a Leviathan, growing closer to them.

Sam runs past Dean, jumping into the driver's seat. Dean and Cas manage to get into the backseat of the Impala before Sam floors it, Bobby and Adam following closely behind.

"Sam, what the fuck is going on!" Dean shouts over the Impala's engines as Cas cranes his neck over Dean's shoulder to look out the back window.

"Dean," Cas says urgently, eyes widening. Dean turns to look out the back window and what he sees isn't pretty. The Leviathans appear to have evolved in some way- leaping like fucking spider-monkeys from tree to tree or just tearing through the underbrush, chasing after them as they try to get away.

Sam throws a gun over the back of his seat, which Dean barely manages to catch before it smacks him in the face. "If they catch up, you know what to do!"

"This won't work on them-"

"It's filled with Borax, it burns them, Bobby was working on it when you crashed-"

"What in the name of-"

"Just shoot them!" Sam snaps, squealing the tires as he turns a sharp corner and throwing Cas into Dean's chest. Dean grunts at Cas' weight hitting his ribs and Cas pulls away rather quickly, clambering onto the other side of the seat.

The Leviathans are gaining on them. One lands in the bed of Bobby's truck and breaks through the glass behind Adam's head, grabbing at his jacket collar. Adam whips around and shoots it full in the face and it breaks away, howling as its face smokes black. Something heavy hits the roof of the Impala and they know it's another Leviathan when its leering face shows up in the passenger side window next to Cas' head. A fist smashes through the glass and wraps itself around Cas' neck. Dean yells and hits it with the demon knife, but it does little good.

"Castiel," it hisses. "We thought for sure you were dead when we tore up your pretty little insides." Cas claws at the Leviathan's hand and Dean cocks the shotgun, aiming for its eye socket, but soon realizing that he can't shoot the monster without hitting Cas. "It'll be our pleasure to do it all again, but this time we'll finish the job."

"Dean," Cas chokes, his face beginning to lose color as his windpipe is crushed. He reaches out with one hand toward Dean, the other still fighting against the monster's grip.

The Leviathan smiles nastily, his sharp fangs beginning to show. "Oh, you're all desperate for _Dean_ to come save you now? I remember what it was like in your head, he was _all _you could think about. Well, no more thinking for you, angel- he'll be the last thing you see." The Leviathan threw its head back, bearing its true form in fangs and gaping mouth, and Dean sees his chance- he hits it in the back of the throat with a bullet.

It shrieks and loses its grip on Cas, falling off the edge of the car. Cas scrambles away from the broken window and curls up in the middle of the seat, gasping in an effort to get his breath back.

The Leviathans seem to be falling back, knowing now that the hunters have a weapon that works against them. Dean lowers the gun slowly. "Cas, you okay?"

Cas shakes his head quickly, still gasping for breath. He looks terrified. This is completely different for Dean- Cas has never really been scared, except for that one time Dean took him to a stripper club. Dean lays his hand on Cas' shoulder and Cas jerks away, turning his wild eyes on him for a moment.

Dean suppresses the absurd feeling of hurt welling up inside him and allows Cas to curl up on the opposite side of the backseat, next to the shattered window.

Sam finally stops about six hours later, during which time Cas hasn't moved an inch from the seat- he's just been staring into empty space, the terror in his eyes worse than any emptiness or pain that's been there in the past.

Adam and Bobby pull up behind the Impala. They're at a small gas station on the outskirts of a tiny town in Montana. No one here but the attendant. "Anyone hurt?" Bobby asks gruffly.

"Just Cas," Sam says quietly. "He'll be okay. Physically, anyway."

Bobby and Adam glance at the back of Dean's head against the driver's side door of the car. "I'll go get some food," Adam decides, walking toward the small general store. Bobby and Sam exchange glances and begin pumping gas.

Dean opens the door to get out and find a gun for Cas in the trunk, when a hand closes around his wrist. Dean looks up, surprised. "You okay, Cas?"

"Dean, we need to talk," Cas mumbles, somehow sounding determined and scared out of his wits at the same time. Dean wonders briefly how many times he's heard that phrase over the past year- _Dean, we need to talk. _When don't people _need_ to talk to him? Why can't people just _want_ to talk to him?

"Okay," Dean sighs tiredly. "What are we talking about?"

"You _know _what we're talking about!" Cas snaps, finally uncurling his legs.

Dean is taken aback at this sudden change in Cas' behavior. "Cas, I don't-"

"The _fuck you don't_. The way you've been acting- with the protective shit and the hand-holding and the way you _look _at me, I can't-" Cas stops as he coughs violently into his hands, blood crossing his fingers.

"Cas, you- you need to calm down. Talking. We're _talking_," Dean says, pulling an old handkerchief out of the back pocket of his jeans and placing it in Cas' hands. Cas stares at it suspiciously, then wipes the blood off his hands and his mouth.

"I just don't know what you're trying to make me think, Dean," Cas mutters. "You turned on me when I needed you, and now you're being so… strange. If you're trying to make it up to me, or prove you're my friend, just- stop. Please," Cas begs.

Dean is dumbfounded. _Cas thinks I'm just pretending? _"Cas, I really don't know what you want me to say," Dean says quietly. "I missed you, man. It's just good to have you back."

"Dean," Cas begins, closing his eyes as though blocking out Dean's words, but Dean plows on recklessly.

"And I know you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you some of the things that happened-"

"Dean," Cas says again, this time sounding like a warning.

"-but I just need you to know that I mean it when I say-"

"Dean!" Cas has covered his ears and is desperate now, squeezing his eyes shut. Dean notices wetness below Cas' eyelashes and is taken aback once again. "Dean, please, stop."

"Okay, Cas," Dean whispers. "We can talk later." Dean steps out of the car, feeling as if a huge crushing weight is being pressed on his chest.

Dean rides with Bobby and Adam after that, a fact no one fails to notice, but nobody brings it up.

Castiel is glad that Dean's riding with them- he needs time to sort out what's going on in his head. He's moved up into the passenger seat next to Sam, who's driving the Impala.

Castiel likes the Impala. It's a nice car by human standards, he supposes, but it's really the feeling it gives him that he likes. It reminds him of conversations and friendship. It smells like take-out food and old leather and rock salt. And for Castiel, it feels like home- and he is sure Dean and Sam feel the same way.

This is a good place to start for Castiel- something that he knows where his feelings lie. The Impala. It- no, she, Dean would call the car a 'she'- was never cruel to him, never turned her back on him, never betrayed him when he needed her most. The Impala was good to Castiel. Of course, it- she- was an inanimate object and had no emotions of her own, so that may be a factor into his certainty.

Where else could he start? _With the easiest questions to answer,_ he found himself deciding. The only problem was, the people who could answer them best were Sam and Dean. Castiel can talk to Sam right now, though, without Dean prying or listening.

"Cas, you okay?" Sam asks, concern showing in his eyes- the same concern he has for Dean on several occasions, when he is hurt or in danger. Castiel remembers the night at the hospital- was it only three years ago, because it felt like an eternity- and the way Sam confronted him without hesitation to fix Dean. Nothing stood between them. It's Sam's willingness to extend that level of care to Castiel that makes him wonder if he may have been forgiven after all.

"Yes. I am just thinking," Castiel assures Sam. After a minute in silence, he asks, "Can I ask you a few questions? To clear up the details."

"Sure, no problem," Sam replies, watching the road carefully.

Castiel thinks. _What is the easiest question to answer? Or at least the least emotional? _Well, that's easy, really-

"How is Adam out of the Pit?" Castiel wonders briefly if either of the brothers sold their soul to retrieve Adam, and the place in Castiel's chest where a soul should be grows intensely cold.

"Oh… Michael got him out," Sam says casually.

No, that is _much_ worse. "Michael… is out of the Pit… as well?" Castiel asks slowly, sure he misheard Sam.

"I guess so. He came back and fixed my wall and dropped Adam with us, so I suppose he's out of the Pit." Sam glances at Castiel and shadows cross his eyes again. "Dude, it's not as bad as it sounds. He wants to help."

_Of course that's what he told you_. "What did he say, exactly? It's important to know. I know my brother very well," Castiel insists.

"He said… that as much as he dislikes us, he would prefer that we didn't all die off," Sam remembers with a grimace.

"That would be Michael," Castiel murmurs to himself. Michael never liked humans much, because God loved them just as much as his first children the angels, maybe even more. _Maybe he really wants to help_.

Castiel recalls something from before his death at the hands of the Leviathans all those months ago. "Sam… I need to apologize," Castiel says. Sam looks at him, surprised, but Castiel continues quickly before Sam can interrupt. "I broke your wall, and that was unnecessary- it caused you, and Dean by extension, a great deal of pain and suffering that could have been avoided. So I apologize."

"Nah, Cas, it's okay," Sam says, much to Castiel's surprise. "I had it fixed up as well as I could for a while, and Michael fixed it permanently. No harm done, Cas. I promise."

"If you don't mind my asking…" Castiel pauses, wondering if this question is considered imprudent, then plunges on. "What happened when I broke your wall?"

Sam stiffens slightly, and Castiel hastens to correct himself. "You don't need to talk about it, I was simply curious-"

"No, no, I- was just surprised," Sam says haltingly. Castiel waits patiently while Sam gathers his words.

"I was trapped inside my head for the first few days… Dean said it was like I was in a coma. I had to put myself back together," Sam begins. "And… once I did, I came to find Dean, and he was with you."

Castiel remembers when Sam stabbed him in the back in an attempt to stop him. He can feel the blade slicing through his spinal cord (not that it matters; Jimmy has been gone for a long time now), piercing his repressed grace (beaten down by the souls and close to death, desperately holding his own) and splitting the skin of his stomach. "And you stabbed me. With my blade," Castiel inserts. _Literally and metaphorically. The tricks I taught you used against me and the weapons I gave you. Does the cycle never end? _

"I was just trying to stop you," Sam sighs. "It was desperate. Hell, _I _was desperate."

"I understand, Sam," Castiel tells him, trying to sound comforting. Although, comfort had never been his strong point- _You were raised as a soldier, and that's what you are good for._

Sam is quiet for a moment longer, then he continues, saying, "It changed, after that. While Dean and Bobby were reopening Purgatory, _he _showed himself." Sam visibly shudders.

Castiel is confused. Who would be able to cause this amount of damage to Sam without Dean seeing?

"Lucifer," Sam says quietly, drawing out the name with a grimace on his lips.

_Lucifer. _Castiel thinks on this. How could only Sam see Lucifer? Castiel had been so sure when he took Sam from the Pit that his soul had been intact, and yet a year and a half later, it wasn't present. _Perhaps Lucifer escaped using Sam as a vessel_. It seems the only reasonable explanation. And if grace had been left on Sam's soul in the Pit, he could appear to Sam as a vision. Castiel closes his eyes. _You stupid, _arrogant _angel, to think Sam could pull through from that kind of nightmare. _

"Cas?" Castiel opens his eyes.

"I didn't realize how much this would affect you, Sam," Castiel says, deep regret blooming in his chest. "I'll find some way to redeem myself to you." _If it's even possible. _

"You don't have to," Sam interrupts Castiel's apology. "I've forgiven you. I really have," Sam insists, seeing Castiel's skeptical expression. "Dean convinced me to."

The mention of Dean brings back all of Castiel's original doubts and he falls silent. Sam, clearly thinking he's convinced Castiel, returns his full attention to driving with a satisfied air. Castiel's thoughts buzz around his head, faster and faster until-

"I don't understand what Dean is trying to do," Castiel blurts suddenly. Sam jerks at Castiel's outburst, but Castiel continues, "He's being… _closer _than usual. Kinder, more gentle. I don't know what he wants from me," Castiel says angrily. _Why should he be close but to use me like he always does? _

"Oh…" Sam looks lost for words. "I suppose there were a few things you missed. And Dean wouldn't have bothered to keep you updated…"

"What kind of things?" Castiel inquires. He has to know what Dean's endgame is, what he's trying to achieve, because there's always a goal to reach, and _getting in the way of a Winchester is a surefire way to get yourself killed, again. Look out for yourself for once. You are no longer the Winchesters' protector. _

Sam shakes his head. "It'd be better if he told you."

Castiel's face sours. "I do not wish to speak with Dean." _And he does not want to speak with me, either, it appears._

"Well, you need to find out. And Dean can tell you best," Sam urges.

"He's playing with me," Castiel snaps. "He's trying to use me."

Comprehension dawns on Sam's face. "Look, I know it's not normal behavior for Dean, but he's not trying to get anything from you," Sam tries to convince him. When Castiel shows his doubt on his face, Sam insists, "He's just got a lot to tell you."

"I bet," Castiel mutters. Sam grins in spite of himself. "What?" Castiel demands.

"Nothing, it's just… you," Sam snickers. Castiel does his best to look hurt, which makes Sam snicker a little more. "You've never been good with emotions, Cas."

Cas is a lot easier to handle when he's sleeping nowadays.

Awake, he's confused, easily agitated, and generally grouchy. Asleep, he's peaceful and calm. He doesn't speak much either way, though, more just sits in his place and stews.

Cas has been sharing a room with Adam when they stop- which doesn't happen often, because four out five people travelling can drive- and this is just fine with Dean. Dean is sure that it's fine with Cas too.

He sleeps less than the rest of them. Dean thinks it might be some leftover-angel-mojo-type-thing, but seeing as he and Cas aren't talking, he doesn't actually know. Cas still does weird things like hold someone's gaze too long to be socially acceptable or tilt his head to an extreme angle when he's confused but Dean wishes he wouldn't, simply because these things remind him of the time before what he's come to refer to as "the Fall". The Fall could be many things- the fall of humanity, Sam and Adam falling into the Cage- but in his mind, it's Cas falling from grace. From Heaven. It wouldn't make much sense to anyone else, seeing as The Fall was actually when Cas got his powers back, but Dean never really cares what people think, honestly.

God only knows where they're going. All they know is that they are Public Enemies Numbers One through Five (in no specific order, but if anyone had to guess, they'd put Cas at the top of the list) on both the Leviathans' and the FBI's lists. So they're retreating as far away as possible without leaving the continental U.S. Bobby has apparently decided that going into the fields of the Great Plains is the best way of escaping the government, but there is a significant lack of alcohol here- something that is noticed by Dean almost immediately- due to their inability to walk into stores of any kind now. Only Adam can go buy them food now, because he's supposed to be dead and isn't on any Wanted Lists yet.

Somehow, at a shit roadside motel on U.S. 50, Dean and Cas end up sharing a room. Dean is certain that Sam got this to happen so they would talk, but if that's his plan, he's severely mistaken- Dean and Cas aren't talking.

Cas doesn't have much in the way of material items. He's got a few old shirts of Dean's, two pairs of jeans, and second-hand boots. There's always the trenchcoat, but Cas doesn't know about that, because Dean hasn't bothered to mention it. Whatever. They aren't talking anyway.

Cas stands awkwardly by one of the beds in their motel room, glancing at the strange pictures hanging on the walls and at the ugly-as-sin bedspreads. Dean dumps his bag, which has nearly all the clothes he owns in it, at the end of what is evidently his bed. "We better turn in," Dean says without looking at Cas. "We've got another long day tomorrow." Dean is sure Cas nods or something, but he doesn't see it, and Cas digs a pair of shorts out of his bag and goes into the bathroom.

Dean takes a deep breath and runs his free hand through his hair. _God dammit, Sam_. He sends a text to his brother- _Whatever you're planning, it's not going to work_. Dean hears Sam laugh from the next room over a minute later and sighs, rummaging through his bag to find a toothbrush. The bathroom door clicks and Dean turns to find Cas standing in the doorway with slightly wet, ruffled hair- it appears he'd put his head in the sink instead of showering. Cas quickly pulls back the covers on his bed and burrows in, the top of his head sticking out like some kind of spiky black urchin. (They'd cut his hair a few days after they left the cabin- the long hair was a look that hadn't suited him very well.) Dean is sure that the exaggerated breathing that follows a couple minutes later is fake, but he allows Cas to pretend to sleep.

When Dean comes back out of the bathroom, Cas' breathing has slowed to a more convincing rate and Dean knows he's asleep. Dean climbs under his covers and lays there for a moment, listening to the steady rise and fall of Cas' breathing. "Night, Cas," he whispers. But there's no one to hear him.

Castiel hasn't had a decent night's sleep since he woke up and found Dean holding his hand.

He doesn't seem to need as much sleep as the hunters do, for one thing. There have been days that Castiel wakes a full three hours before any of the others, and still others where he has had to quite literally pull Adam out of bed to wake him.

The other thing is the nightmares.

Castiel doesn't think Adam has noticed yet. Adam is an extremely heavy sleeper and could, in Castiel's opinion, sleep through the Apocalypse, were it to occur in full. Bobby has been far too busy to notice, what with keeping his "children" from dying and trying to send the Leviathans back to Purgatory. Sam has noticed the dark circles forming under his eyes and the air of exhaustion around him, but when Sam asks, Castiel waves him off, saying something about how he's still "getting used to being human". And Dean…

Dean, on Castiel's request, has made no attempt to talk to him since they left the cabin. While Castiel respects this, appreciates it even, he wishes Dean didn't treat him like he doesn't even know him. It would be nice to have the friendship they used to have back- the car rides in silence that didn't need to be broken, the "last night on earth" speeches, the trips to bars or anywhere that had alcohol.

Castiel wants to talk to Dean. When he mentions this to Sam, the grin on Sam's face looks as though it will split his lower jaw off. Sam says something about how that would "be arranged". Castiel doesn't like the look on Sam's face as he says this, but allows it to pass.

This is how Castiel ends up sharing a room with Dean for a night. They don't speak before they go to bed. Castiel sighs internally. Another wasted effort.

When Castiel falls asleep, the nightmares come again.

They always start the same. The time Castiel was dragged back to heaven, before he rebelled, before Sam set Lucifer free, they took him and _reconditioned _him. It was the word they preferred to use. Having been through it now, Castiel would call it _torture_.

Castiel swears he can feel the tools they use piercing his grace and ripping through his wings, even after the years. They are designed to do minimal damage but inflict intense pain. Castiel doesn't know how they work. He doesn't care. Because even now he can feel the way Raphael and Virgil tore at his entire being. In his dreams, he screams out, begs for mercy, submits to the ways and thoughts of the Host. He may well be screaming in real life too. No one has ever bothered to tell him.

The dream shifts at this point and he can see Dean trying to accept Michael, sometime before when the Cage was reopened. But this time, instead of following the paths of reality, Dean manages to be overtaken by Michael, and when the fight comes Castiel is restrained by the Host and cannot intervene, not until the fight is over and Dean's broken shell lies on the ground. When the Host finally releases him, he reaches out to Dean and when he touches Dean's body it becomes black ooze, black ooze that surrounds him, suffocates him, drowns him-

Until he's New God once more, in the building where the political party gathered, surrounded by bloody, torn bodies. He looks at the bodies, at the faces, and recognizes them all- Jo. Ellen. Bobby. Gabriel. Balthazar. Sam. Dean. And in his head, he knows it is a message- _I killed you. And you. And you…_ And the water rises, and Castiel falls into the abyss-

And then he wakes.

At least, that's how it usually works.

This time, sharing a room with Dean- who is an extremely light sleeper- pays off, because he only screams once before another voice enters his dreams and pulls him back.

"Cas? Cas!" Castiel is sitting up, in the bed of a cheap motel, and Dean's hands are on his shoulders. He notices his arms are curled around his legs in a sort of fetal position and he is trying to cover his body with his wings, which is stupid of him, because they're no longer there.

Dean's hands are rough, shaking him slightly. "Cas, come on, talk to me," he begs, and it's this that shakes Castiel out of the remnants of his dream-state.

"D- Dean," Castiel stutters, grabbing Dean's forearms with his hands. Dean releases him almost immediately, evidently thinking this is a defensive move, but Castiel clings to his shirt sleeve, desperate to hold on to something, _anything_, to keep him tethered to reality.

Dean hesitates, then he wraps his arms around Castiel, firm and strong and Castiel doesn't fight him away but finally comes undone. He sobs like there's nothing left for him in the world, which is ridiculous because there will always be something for him in the world in Dean and Sam and Bobby and all the other people he knows, but he sobs all the same.

"Cas, can you tell me about it?" Castiel shakes his head and presses his head harder into Dean's shoulder (where, as Castiel well knows, the handprint he left remains, a mark of his former self and a claim laid on Dean's soul). "It's better if you talk about it."

"No," Castiel whispers into Dean's shirt. He's not sure Dean hears, so he repeats himself. "Please, Dean, don't."

"Okay, Cas," Dean's voice says, soothingly and quietly. "You don't have to." Dean pries Castiel off him and looks him straight in the eye. "You should try to sleep more. It's only two in the morning. It's okay," Dean insists when Castiel's eyes grow wide and he begins to shake his head. "I'll be right here if you need me." Castiel looks into Dean's eyes (like a swirling green vortex, one can never quite see the bottom but he keeps looking for it anyway) and finds Dean is telling the truth.

Castiel lets Dean pull the covers back over him and rolls back so he's facing away from Dean again. He reflects- somewhat bitterly- that he was once an angel, a being to be respected and even feared, and now he cowers in the arms of men. Well, of one man, really. _How has fate been allowed to turn this way?_

Cas doesn't have any more nightmares that night. This doesn't prevent Dean from watching over him like a hawk for the rest of the night.

Dean had thought he had seen everything there was from Cas- the mysterious supernatural being that raised him from Hell, the rebel with nothing left to lose and yet everything, the drunken fatherless broken man who helped him stop the Apocalypse, the friend who betrayed them, the new God. He knows now that no matter what, Cas will keep surprising him. This is completely new- Cas is the one who needs to be saved now, from his own personal demons.

Dean wonders who can help Cas the best. Not Adam, who knows very little of the world of night terrors. The same goes for Bobby (whose advice would most likely be _don't let anyone see you weak and keep focused on the goal_). Sam could help, but in the end… Dean sighs. He knows he'd be the most help to Cas, because his nightmares have always been worse than anyone else's.

Although, Cas could really use one of his brothers to help him out-

A sudden realization comes to Dean. How could he forget? _Michael_.

Michael flashes into being almost immediately after Dean thinks his name. "This had better be good, Winchester."

"Well, it's not about the Leviathans, but-"

Michael sighs, cutting across Dean's words. "Then why am I here?"

Dean makes a vague gesture toward the bed where Cas is sleeping. "Him."

Michael looks uninterestedly at the strangely lumpy shape of the former angel under the covers. "You're going to have to be more specific. Who is that?"

Dean swallows. "It's Cas. Castiel, I mean."

Michael's eyes widen. He walks swiftly to Cas' bedside and kneels by his head, eyes roaming over his face. "How?"

Dean shakes his head. "I don't know. None of us know, not even him."

Michael looks thunderstruck (which, Dean thinks, is funny because he's supposed to be an _all-knowing archangel _or whatever). "But… he was New God," Michael murmurs. "The Leviathans tore him apart. There was no way he could…"

Dean doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what he would say anyway.

Michael stands and turns toward Dean quite abruptly. "Tell me what you know," he commands, and Dean is reminded that he is in the presence of Michael the _archangel_, and instead of following his instincts (which want to tell him to kindly fuck off), he obediently tells the whole story of the car crash and what followed.

Michael gives Dean a disapproving look. "You shouldn't drive so recklessly. You're lucky to be alive as it is."

"Cas shouldn't have jumped in front of my car!" Dean says indignantly, before remembering it's barely four in the morning and falling silent. Michael accepts this flippant remark without comment and turns his attention back to his brother.

"May I speak with him?"

Dean is floored by this question. When he finds his voice again, he splutters, "I- but- he's not _my_ brother."

Michael considers him for a moment. "No," he says finally. "He's more than that, isn't he?"

Dean can feel the way his face turns bright red and tries to concentrate. "I mean, I guess, yeah, you can talk to him," Dean finishes lamely.

Michael approaches Cas' bed again, cautiously this time, and kneels once more, placing his hand on Cas' shoulder. "Brother," he murmurs, gently shaking Cas' shoulder.

Cas' eyes open and he jolts up at the unfamiliar face of Michael's new vessel. "It's okay, Cas," Dean says quickly, before Cas can bolt. "It's Michael."

A look of wonder comes over Cas' face as he observes the new vessel. "Brother," he whispers. "Why have you come?"

"Dean called me," Michael answers, waving a hand over his shoulder and seating himself on the bed next to Cas.

Cas turns a confused and slightly disapproving face on Dean. "I was worried, Cas," Dean tries to explain. "You need your family too." Cas' face retains the confusion but the disapproval disappears.

"I… am glad you came, Michael," Cas says slowly. "Of course, it's not the same as it was before."

Michael's face takes on a certain sadness and answers after a moment. "It never could be." Cas closes his eyes. "I'm glad you're alive."

"I am as well," Cas says without missing a beat. Dean snorts and both Cas and Michael turn to look at him.

"Sorry, I just…" Dean chuckles. "He's not even _trying _to be funny, but he is." Cas glares at him and Michael smiles slightly before standing.

"You're leaving?" The surprise in Cas' voice is there to cover the hurt that is completely obvious.

"I have to control the remainder of the Host," Michael sighed. "They get restless and anxious when I'm not in Heaven. Many have already fled or been killed." Michael looked at Cas. "I wish I could spend more time with you, brother, but you cannot come to Heaven at will, and I cannot be gone too long. We can speak again at a later date."

"I understand." Then, as though he can't stand it any longer, Cas blurts out, "Which- who out of our brothers remain?"

"Not many," came the reluctant reply. "Some died during the siege on Hell, others in taking the seals, and so many during the war in Heaven." Michael pauses, as though collecting his thoughts. "Although, there are still some left from your garrison- Inias and Hester are currently in Heaven."

"Can you- can you tell them I'm alive?" Cas asks, hope showing on his face. "I would like to see them… one last time. Before I am gone."

Dean doesn't understand what Cas is saying- why would he be gone? Where is he going? Dean thinks for a moment- Cas can't go back to Heaven, because he's mortal now. But where would he go if he died- Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory? Would he stay on Earth and become a vengeful spirit?

Michael shakes his head. "I can tell Inias and maybe a few others, but many of our brothers are… upset," he explains. Dean takes this to mean _pissed the fuck off_. "You did, after all, kill many of our brothers during and after the war."

Cas seems to deflate, but he nods and bids farewell to Michael, then adds something in Enochian very quietly. Michael closes his eyes and a tear slides out from under his eyelashes.

Then he's gone.

After a moment, Dean stands and sits in Michael's place. "You gonna go back to sleep?"

"I don't understand what you meant," Cas says, disregarding Dean's question entirely.

"What, when I said you were funny? It's really nothing, Cas, I-"

"No, when you said I needed… my family," Cas interrupts, rolling the phrase on his tongue in a strange way.

Dean is confused by Cas' choice of words. "You know, Cas, your family. The angels, they're your brothers."

"Dean, I have my family here," Cas murmurs, reaching out and placing his hand on Dean's arm. "I miss my brothers, I do, but… you, and Sam and Bobby and Adam, you're my family now."

Dean can hardly think over the sound of his own blood racing, but all he says is, "You should go back to sleep, Cas."

Cas burrows down under his covers, but doesn't close his eyes. "Cas?"

"Stay with me, Dean," Cas whispers. "Please."

Dean lies back on top of the covers of Cas' bed and Cas curls up close to him.

"I never left."

Sam has to break into Dean and Cas' room the next morning to get them out. When he sees the two of them, sharing one bed and both sound asleep, he hisses "Yes!" and quietly closes the door to report his success to Bobby and Adam.

Unfortunately, the sound of the latch clicking is enough to wake Dean, who is surprised and more than a little confused to find himself under the covers of Cas' bed, with Cas sleeping on his chest. He wonders briefly how he got under the covers, then decides it doesn't matter as he tries to figure out how to get out from under Cas without waking him up. Luckily for him, Cas wakes up at that exact moment. He doesn't move though, just lays there as though he's perfectly comfortable with the situation.

It's a few minutes before either of them speak.

"You're okay with it, then?" Dean asks quietly, and when Cas looks up into his eyes, he sees any range of answer that could be given at that moment. But he only gives one.

"I'm okay with it."


	3. Chapter 3: Redemption

It's a week- and four more hotel rooms- before they get to whatever godforsaken place Bobby is leading them.

Dean and Castiel share a room now, but only (as Dean is quick to tell Sam) because Dean is there to help with Castiel's nightmares. It's the same every time Castiel has to sleep, but Dean is there. Dean is always there. After the second room, Dean starts getting into bed with Castiel and cradling him when he jolts awake, shuddering and unable to speak.

In the last hotel room they share, Castiel finally tells Dean about the nightmares- the torture in Heaven, the Apocalypse, the slaughters under New God.

"You know it's not real, right?" Dean whispers when Castiel finishes.

"It was once," Castiel replies, pressing himself closer to Dean and feeling the way Dean holds him closer when he does this. It's not unpleasant.

"None of it could happen now, though," Dean insists. Castiel pulls away from Dean and props himself up on his elbow, staring at Dean's slightly disheveled shirt and wondering how he can make Dean understand the current of fear that lies under his skin at all times, waking or sleeping. Castiel imagines that he can still feel his wings and tries extending them to curve toward Dean. There's nothing left, though- just a shadow of his former grace.

"Dean, I…" Castiel can't find the words he needs to explain his thoughts. "This cannot continue."

"What?" Dean's eyes widen slightly as he tries to process Castiel's words. Castiel needs to explain better.

"This," Castiel says, gesturing toward the two of them. "The Leviathans know everything about me, and they know my… weak spots. You," Castiel adds when Dean still looks confused. "I'm putting you in danger."

"No, Cas, you're not-" Dean begins.

"Please, Dean, don't put yourself in danger for me," Castiel interrupts him quickly, wanting to say everything on his mind before Dean can convince him otherwise. "You can't protect me, and I can't protect you. It's dangerous."

"Who ever said hanging with hunters was safe?" Castiel tries to argue, but Dean brushes him away, continuing, "And I'll be damned- again- if I can't protect you, Cas. It's what family does. We protect each other."

"It seems you will never change, Dean Winchester," Castiel mutters. Dean grins at him, then the grin seems to fade as he sees Castiel' expression.

"Oh, come on, you know I'm stubborn." Dean sits up and rolls out of bed. "Just hold up, I've got something to show you."

Dean is only gone for approximately thirty seconds. When he comes back into the hotel room, Castiel sits up completely and inspects the bundle in Dean's hands. It's tan in color and appears to be made of a familiar fabric. Castiel's breath catches as he realizes what it is. "Y- you kept it," he stammers, taking the coat- his coat- when Dean hands it to him.

"Well, you were going to come back," Dean says nonchalantly as Castiel unfolds the coat cautiously, as though it may rip at the seams. "I thought you might need it." Dean sits on the bed, noticing the tears on Castiel's face. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, I just, thank you," Castiel says, stumbling over his words. "It's… strange." Dean looks surprised. "You know, you never had faith in anything or anyone and now this, this just proves that you really did¸ and you're just amazing and I'm so sorry for all the things we made you do, Dean, I'm sorry." Castiel knows he's rambling and finds it hard to stop himself from talking more. "I'm sorry we let Lucifer out, I'm sorry I couldn't find God, I'm sorry we made you torture again, I'm sorry I worked with Crowley, and I'm sorry that I killed all those people and died-"

"Cas, hey," Dean interrupts him quickly. "It's okay, it's all okay."

"How can you say that?"

"We did the same thing, Cas," Dean explains. "We worked with demons, we let Lucifer out, hell, it all started when we opened the Devil's Gate and let half of Hell out. A lot of this is our fault too. And," Dean continues recklessly, because he seems to know Castiel wants to dispute this, "The part about you not finding God? That is not your fault. It will never be your fault."

Castiel lays his head back onto his pillows, not wanting to speak on the subject of blame anymore, because Dean is wrong; all the blame still lies with him. He made the choice to open Purgatory. He doesn't even feel worthy of having Dean comfort him- if anything, he feels worse for it. Who is he to allow someone to assure him he is not at blame, much less the Righteous Man? Who is he to run from his nightmares and his guilt?

Dean lays on his side next to Castiel. "You don't believe me."

"No."

"I'll just have to work on it, then," Dean sighs, rolling onto his back so Castiel can curl up next to him.

Even with the guilt, Castiel admits that the pain in his chest becomes a little lighter when Dean brushes his lips against his hair.

There's no goddamn internet out here.

In addition, there's no cable, no satellite, not even a radio signal. They're lucky to have electricity and running water.

Unloading doesn't take long, but Cas doesn't move from the car until Dean has to physically usher him inside. Cas doesn't speak to anyone, not even Dean, who sits Cas down on a vacant chair until he can talk to him.

Adam's the one who notices something wrong with Cas' eyes. Instead of their normal blue, they're slowly turning green, then brown, then black. Not like demon eyes- only the irises are black- but everyone waits on tenterhooks inside the small two-room shack to find the issue. Sam and Bobby look through reference books. Adam shuffles stacks of paper around to help them find manuscripts. Dean sits in a chair directly across from Cas and watches his eyes, desperately willing them to turn back to blue.

Suddenly, Cas throws his head back and his eyes glow white as he lets out an earth-shattering scream that causes all the other people in the room to cover their ears in agony. As quickly as it began, it ends, with Cas' eyes fading back to blue and his body slumping out of the chair. Dean recovers in time to catch Cas before he hits the ground. He's twitching, like he's having a seizure, and Dean lays him on his side on the ground, pinning his arms to his sides so he doesn't break something, or himself.

It's all over in less than a minute, and Dean helps Cas sit up and holds him while he recovers.

"What the hell was that, Cas?" Sam asks, rubbing his temple.

"The angels," Cas gasps, clutching Dean's arm and trying to stand.

"Woah, hey," Dean protests, putting a hand out to keep Cas from standing. "What about the angels?"

Cas looks up at him, his face full of fear. "They're gone. The Leviathans got them. And the ones that aren't dead… they're coming here."

"Balls," Bobby hisses, grabbing a silver knife from a table to being drawing sigils in blood.

"It's no use, they already know where we are!" Cas finally pushes up off the ground and dodges Dean on his way out the door.

"Cas!" Dean races after him, unsure of what either of them are doing.

Cas stops suddenly in the middle of the field their small cabin is surrounded by and stares up at the sky as though waiting for something. When he hears Dean rushing toward him, he throws a hand out at him, and some kind of force slams into his chest. Dean is thrown back twenty feet and lands hard on his back. Sam and Adam reach him within a few seconds and pull him up into a sitting position.

"Stay back!" Cas cries, and they can see the light in his eyes, like when he was an angel using his grace, pulling Dean out of hell, slaughtering demons and monsters. He continues looking up at the sky, and bright lights are moving around, like stars in the day time.

"Well?" he screams at the lights, opening his hands at his side. "Come get me, you bastards!"

"Cas, no," Dean whispers. It seems Cas hears him, because he looks around and clenches his hands into fists.

The lights are getting closer, and beginning to materialize into shapes. A lion on one side, a bear on the other. Unbeknownst to Dean or any of the other humans, these are the angels' best representation of their true forms. Cas' human form flickers slightly and turns abruptly into that of a raven, soaring around the others at head-level. The shapes finish their materialization and the Cas-raven perches on the shoulder of a small, deer-like animal- an antelope. Apparently the contact allows communication, because after a moment the Cas-raven flies off and rematerializes into human form to speak to Dean.

"They're not going to hurt us," Cas says quietly, kneeling by Dean. Sam and Adam lean in to hear him. "They're what's left of my garrison. They are seeking shelter."

"We can't take more people, Cas, you know that," Sam protests, helping Dean stand. Dean looks over Cas' shoulder and sees the angels have turned to a human form. The antelope is a smaller man, taller than Cas but scrawny-looking. The bear and the lion have turned into unremarkable men built like NFL front liners. There is a woman standing off to the side with a look on her face that would melt solid lead.

"We're stretched thin enough as it is," Sam continues, placing a hand on Cas' shoulder.

Cas sighs. "I cannot leave them, Sam, they're my brothers." And that's all he needs to say, isn't it? Because Sam and Dean understand this better than anyone. Nearly 30 years of codependency have taught them that family is everything.

"We can try, Cas," Dean decides. Cas' face softens as he smiles slightly. He turns back to the assembled angels to bring them closer.

"Inias," he greets the scrawny one.

"Castiel," he replies. "We didn't mean to frighten you."

"A little warning would have been preferred, but thank you," Cas murmurs, a shadow of humor coming into his voice.

"Couldn't give much of a warning, could we, running from Purgatory monsters that someone we know had to let out," the woman snips at him without a trace of humor.

"Hester, please," Inias snaps, turning on her. "We have discussed this." The woman huffs and rolls her eyes.

Cas ushers the four angels over to the three Winchesters. "Dean, Sam, Adam," he begins, "This is Inias, Hester, Eremiel, and Keriel." He indicates each of the four angels in turn. "We were all in the same garrison."

Inias steps forward and offers his hand to Dean. "Hello, Dean," he says earnestly. "It's nice to meet you… finally. We've heard so much about you."

Dean takes his hand hesitantly. "From the radar? Half of that probably wasn't even true-"

"Oh, no," Inias laughs. "From Castiel." Cas blushes slightly and ducks his head.

"What about Michael?" Sam asks the angels. "He was supposed to help us."

"We have not heard from Michael," Keriel rumbles- he is the kind of man that has a naturally deep voice. "The last thing we heard was him chasing a group of Leviathans down on his own." Cas closes his eyes. Everyone present understands this is a death sentence, even for an archangel.

"We must assume he is dead," Inias says sadly. "And we must press on."

"Then we should probably get going now," Adam insists. "There's no way what happened to Cas went unnoticed."

"What happened to-?" Inias begins, but Cas interrupts him quickly.

"We can explain on the way to- to where we're going," Cas decides lamely. "I cannot explain the events of today, but I hope that you can. Please, speak to the Winchesters, they'll do their best." Cas turns to Dean. "Where are we going?"

Something new is present in Cas' composure- no, not new, just missed. This is the Cas he knew before the Fall. The light is back in his blue eyes and he stands taller.

"I don't know," Dean says quietly. "We're out of places to run." Cas draws his eyebrows together.

"In any case, we need to move." Dean nods in agreement and turns back to the cabin, where Sam and Adam have told Bobby exactly what the Devil is goin' on and why ain't we shootin' anyone? Cas and Dean walk back to the cabin in the corn field, trailed by four extremely lost-looking angels.

Bobby decides that they're staying the night here regardless of whoever's coming for them, and Cas finds room for each of his brothers. Apparently angelic strength increases in numbers, such as wolves in a pack- Cas is closer to what he was as an angel than what he is now, completely human. When Adam finally asks why he changed into a raven, and how, Cas tells him that it is their way of communication, even with their fallen brothers. When Anna had been an angel (she'd been called Anael), she would turn into a fox on Earth. She'd never again experienced the transformation after her fall, instead preferring to communicate in her human form. It's just a trait they have, Cas says. He's still just a human, but now he can heal minor injuries and turn into a bird of prey, and even those changes will wear off soon enough.

Dean is relieved to hear this. Somehow, having Cas as a human works better for everyone concerned, ever though it doesn't really.

They've separated into distinct factions of people. Inias turns out to be the most friendly of the new arrivals and immediately engages both Sam and Adam in an animated discussion. Keriel moves to assist Bobby in translating a difficult text that Cas hadn't started on yet. Eremiel- who has yet to say a word- watches Dean methodically clean his handgun, observing his techniques, then picks up one of the guns Dean has out to clean and does it himself. Dean watches with slightly raised eyebrows, appearing impressed. Hester perches on a chair near Inias and speaks to no one, glaring at Cas as though all this is his fault.

Cas probably notices this, because he excuses himself to sleep. Inias cheerily bids him goodnight in Enochian (or Dean thinks he does, at least, he doesn't know any of the angelic language) and Keriel rumbles something indistinguishable. Hester's angry eyes follow him from the room, and Inias shoots her a strange look before turning back to Sam and Adam's eager questions.

Dean waits a few minutes to leave, but he soon grows tired of cleaning the weapons in silence with Eremiel (although there is a strange solidarity between them now). He follows the path Cas took out of the room and finds him seemingly asleep on one of the decrepit mattresses in the room. Maybe the arrival of his brothers fixed his nightmares as well. Dean takes the other mattress in the room and falls into an uneasy sleep.

Sam wonders, briefly, why Cas is going to bed when his brothers are here, but is soon distracted by Adam asking a question about what it's like to be able to smite demons. Inias, bless his soul- well not literally, he doesn't have one, anyway- has been answering their questions left and right and seems to take a genuine pleasure in it. Dean leaves too, and no one in the room questions it, to Sam's surprise- he'd figured questions would be put up about why they were sleeping in the same room. (Not, as Dean would be quick to point out, sleeping together- simply sleeping in the other's presence. That's it.)

After about an hour, Sam and Adam have exhausted their questions, and Inias has asked a couple of questions on the basics of human life and even sat through Adam's description of reality television. Inias appears to contemplate a spot on the wall for a moment before saying, "I see our brother has finally opened up, yes?"

"What, Cas? Not really, no," Sam says honestly, while Adam nods in agreement.

"He hasn't said a word to me," Adam adds, leaning back into the old, worn couch.

Inias laughs softly. "I should have specified, I apologize. He's not opened up to either of you, but to the Righteous Man."

Sam snorts. "It'd be easier on Dean if they would talk to each other, ever."

Inias looks startled. "I assumed-"

"Dean is a stubborn sonuvabitch," Bobby grunts from across the room. "And he won't tell the idgit he's in love with 'im."

Inias reflects on this. "What of our brother?"

"I think he's… afraid," Adam said hesitantly. "Of what will happen if either of them brings up the subject."

"As it should be," Hester snaps from her spot on the arm of a chair.

"Hester, please," Inias says exasperatedly, turning to her. "Do you not wish our brother to be happy?"

"Castiel is lost!" Hester stands agitatedly and begins pacing. "He doesn't know what he wants for himself!"

"Castiel is in good hands here, Hester," Keriel says, placing a tattered manuscript on a table gingerly.

"These- these humans-" she spits out the word like a derogatory slang- "they've corrupted him! Where do you think he got his ideas about 'free will'? Who do you think encouraged him to rebel?" She strides over to Sam and pointed a finger in his face. "Your brother is responsible for this!"

"Hester." A new voice, surprisingly gentle and soft, springs up in the room. It's Eremiel. "Please be reasonable. Castiel is a new person. He has not been lost, he has simply changed, and it is not a thing to blame on any one being."

"You're right. He's changed." Hester walks back to the door. "But not for the better." She opens the door and slams it behind her, leaving a stunned silence in the room.

"She'll be back," Sam says automatically, wanting to relieve the stress. When no one agrees with him, he asks, "Won't she?"

"I don't know," Inias says helplessly. "Our powers are diminished, we cannot force her back. And with the way she's been talking…"

"We know you guys probably aren't happy with Cas, but he was just trying to stop Raphael," Sam insists.

"No," Inias replies. "He did it to keep you and your brother safe."

"What?"

"This is what I meant by my first statements. You see, he's always only had brothers in his whole existence. But when he raised Dean from the depths of Hell, he got something he never truly had," Inias explains.

"What's that?"

"Friends."

Dean just has to be wrong about everything, doesn't he?

He finds himself comforting Cas after the nightmares strike him again. Same nightmares as always. But this time, Cas pushes Dean away just a few minutes after he wakes.

"Cas, what-?"

"Can't," Cas mumbles. "My brothers already think I am weak."

"Screw what they think," Dean snaps, anger at Cas' family growing slowly.

"If they find that I rely on a human, God forbid, for my sanity… what will they think, Dean?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean doesn't like the sound of this.

"You remember what I said-"

"It was a stupid thing to say!"

"I meant it."

Dean is floored by this- by Cas rejecting him after seemingly accepting him. "Would you- would you rather have them see this?" Dean stammers, gesturing toward the way Cas has the sheets curled around him from his invisible struggles.

"They will see nothing."

The conviction in Cas' voice shows Dean that he can't convince him to change his mind, that he's lost Cas for good this time. "Cas…"

"I'm sorry." Cas turns away from Dean and puts his head in his hands. "Can you… leave me, please? I need some time."

Dean doesn't answer.

The door closes behind him, loud as a gunshot in the silent, sleeping house.

Castiel knows he's made a mistake.

He knows it in the way Dean won't talk to him or even look at him the next day.

He knows it in the way Sam tries to talk to Dean, and Dean brushes him off too.

Inias notices Castiel's demeanor as well, and spends much of the next day (while they're packing and preparing to move on) speaking in soft tones to him.

"Did you make the right decision, brother?" Inias asks, heads close together on the pretense of delicately packing old manuscripts into a box.

"It's best for both of us," Castiel replies. "But… I didn't want to upset him, and it appears that I have."

"Perhaps you should apologize," Inias suggests, gingerly placing a tattered book on the bottom of the box.

"I know I should, but…" Castiel tries to phrase his words correctly. "I do not know that I can. I want to, Inias, I really do, but I can't."

Inias mulls this over while he deftly organizes yellowed sheets of paper into a neat stack. "You have become very… human." When Castiel bristles at this, Inias hastens to explain. "It's not a bad quality to have, Castiel. It makes you more able to feel."

"I'm not sure you understand what that entails," Castiel mutters. "I looked into Dean's soul before I rebelled, and all I saw was pain and confusion and grief, yet I chose this path anyway."

"You chose much more than that." Castiel looks up into Inias' eyes, which are trained on his own. "I do not know personally, but what I have seen from humanity, there is more to it than the pain and the confusion. There is kindness, there is compassion, there is love. You chose to rebel and you gained so much, and brought it back to us."

It's hard to argue with Inias when he sounds so sincere. "Is it worth it?"

"That's for you to decide."

"Come on, Dean, talk to me," Sam snaps, when he's finally fed up with Dean's surly attitude. Dean doesn't even do him the favor of looking him in the eye. "At least talk to Cas, then."

"There's nothing to say." Dean is driving. Sam knows he's doing it so that he doesn't have to talk to anyone. He also knows how Cas will feel when he sees this.

"Dean, I'm sure he didn't mean-"

"You don't know anything about what happened, Sam!"

"Dean-"

Dean slams on the brakes and throws the car into park before turning his whole body to face Sam. "For God's sake, Sam, drop. It," he seethes. "You don't know what happened. I do. So fuck off and quit giving me advice!"

Sam sighs internally. This is exactly what Dean was like before Cas came back. "I just want to help, Dean."

"Well, you can't, so stop trying." Dean puts the car into drive and starts back on the highway. "Where did Inias and the rest of them go?"

"Keriel and Eremiel went looking for Hester. We haven't seen her since yesterday." Sam pauses. "Inias is with Cas, in Bobby's truck. He hasn't left him all morning."

Sam watches Dean's knuckles go white. "I- okay."

"You can't blame yourself," Sam begins.

"What did I just fucking say?" Sam doesn't rise to the bait.

"I'm just saying that you don't know everything Cas is thinking," he sighs, knowing that every word he says just inflames Dean's anger a little further. "There's always another side."

"I know that." Dean turns up the radio a bit louder, signaling Sam to shut up.

They stop at an exit on I-70 where there's a cheap, seedy motel. Bobby pays for two rooms- it's all they can afford- and they split up into the rooms. Sam is surprised when Inias leads Cas into his and Dean's room, and even more surprised when Inias touches Dean's shoulder lightly and asks to speak with him.

Cas stands next to Sam, unusually small-looking and stumbling over bumps in the carpeting. "Sam," he greets him with a mutter.

"Cas, you okay? You look terrible." Sam wouldn't normally point this out, but Cas looks almost worse than he did when he nearly died.

"It is an accurate reflection of my inner feelings, then," Cas whispers, sitting on the edge of one of the beds with his head in his hands.

"I'm sure Dean's not really that mad, Cas," Sam tries to encourage him. Cas just shakes his head. Sam looks a little more closely. Cas' eyes are glazed over, staring into the distance; his hands are shaking with every movement he makes; sweat seems to be forming on his forehead. "Cas, I think you're sick."

"Excuse me?" Cas has the energy to look offended, at least.

"I mean, you've got a virus or something. That's what it looks like," Sam explains hastily. "Maybe like… angel mojo withdrawal. You said it would go away, right?"

"Mmm." Cas reaches down to take off his shoes and nearly tips off the edge of the bed. Sam puts a hand on Cas' shoulder to steady him.

"You should sleep."

"No! No." Cas sits up, trying to look awake. "I do not need to sleep."

"Nobody's buying that, Cas." Dean walks in, looking somewhat awkward and sheepish. Inias follows with a smug look of satisfaction lingering on his face.

"Brother, I am going to look for Keriel and Eremiel," Inias tells Cas. "Do try to sleep. It will do you good."

"Of- of course." Inias murmurs a phrase in Enochian, then strolls out of the room. Sam wanders toward the small bathroom to give Dean and Cas some modicum of privacy. He can hear the whole conversation behind him, though they speak in shushed tones.

"Um, Cas, I-"

"I know, Dean."

"Let me finish, you stupid feathery bitch."

"Creative."

"Shut up. I'm sorry."

"And as I said, I know."

"Inias is right, you need to sleep."

"Will you stay?"

"Yeah."

Sam turns in time to see Cas curl under the covers and have Dean pull them over his shoulders. He must be smirking, because Dean smacks him as he walks by and mutters, "Shut up."

"Yeah, okay. Take care of your angel. I'm claiming this bed," Sam says, throwing a t-shirt on the opposite bed.

"He's not mine," Dean protests, snatching a toothbrush from his duffel bag and closing the door to the bathroom. Sam grins and pulls up his own covers.

It's another late-night conversation, after Dean has rescued Castiel from his nightmares, that Castiel voices one of his concerns.

"Inias said Hester was angry with me."

"Mostly with me, really," Dean replies. "She thinks I messed you up. God knows she's right." Castiel does his best to look offended. "I mean, come on, Cas. If I hadn't ever met you, you wouldn't have fallen, or died three times, or had to kill your brothers."

"I wouldn't know you, then."

"It could be for the best."

"Dean Winchester, don't you dare." Dean raises his eyebrows, and Castiel plunges on, "I would never trade you for anything. And I would do it all again- falling, and killing, and dying, all of it- in a heartbeat. I never want this different."

"I believe you." Dean is silent for a minute, and Castiel worries that he's revealed too much. Then Dean grins. "Though you have to admit, we're pretty fucked up."

"That's life," Castiel says wisely.

"Go back to sleep, Cas." Dean helps him settle back in.

"When do the nightmares go away?" They aren't fading, but they're changing to better fit his demons, and instead of the torture and the altered reality, it's the feeling of being trapped in his own body, Leviathans tearing at him and he is alone, alone, alone, in the darkness, dying.

Dean hesitates. "They don't," he decides. "I mean, they fade. I don't dream about Hell anymore."

"What do you dream about?" Castiel asks, genuinely curious. Dean will never stop surprising him, and he wishes to know everything he can.

"I don't know. I don't think I've been dreaming a lot recently." Dean pauses. "It was worse when you were gone."

"I'm sorry." And he is, truly, sorry. His absence had caused Dean unwarranted pain. He wants to make it up to him.

"Don't apologize. You couldn't help it." Dean quietly pulls up the covers around Castiel's shoulders. "Sleep."

As Castiel drifts off, he wonders, not for the first or last time, what will become of him and Dean in this new world they have.

The Whole knows now.

The Vessel is back. Castiel, the angel they killed personally, is back from the dead. One of those sent to attack the Winchesters' haven found him there and reported it to the Whole. They transmit thoughts instantaneously, through a kind of telekinesis.

Is he a threat? No, some of them insist. He is injured and weak. He does not pose a threat.

Yes, some others say. He is the angel Castiel, he holds high counsel in Heaven. We must terminate him immediately.

The Queen (whom all her worker bees revolve around) contemplates these arguments quietly. The mental bickering continues.

If we were to eliminate Castiel, we would invoke the wrath of the Righteous Man. We cannot afford to bring this upon us.

He intends to destroy us all in any case!

No, he simply intends to incarcerate us within Purgatory once more.

We cannot assume-

Enough, the Queen interrupts, bringing all the speaking to an end. We will not attack Castiel. He shall come to us. You know how it is written, and though he shall never find the hidden words, it shall come to pass. So it is written, so it shall be.

And the Whole echoes their Queen. So it is written, so it shall be.

We shall bring the end of the Winchesters and their angel, and with them the end of all humans, demons, and angels alike. We will bring silence to their world. We will bring the End of Days.

So it is written, so it shall be.

"The Leviathans haven't attacked us for over a week," Adam mentions mildly, pausing in the process of making Borax bullets. "Anyone else find that strange?"

"I didn't want to mention it," Bobby mutters, testing the edge of a knife blade and slicing his thumb. "Sonovabitch."

"Allow me," Inias says, placing his long, pale fingers over Bobby's hand, healing the cut instantly.

"Why wouldn't they attack us? We barely got away last time," Sam asks concernedly.

Adam thinks for a moment. "Maybe they're biding their time. Or they know something we don't."

"They know a hell of a lot that we don't," Dean sighs, leaning back into the couch and throwing an arm around Cas' shoulders. Cas leans instinctively into the touch, then seems to remember himself and tries to make it look like he was just readjusting his legs. Dean isn't deterred. "For one, they probably know how to open a portal to Purgatory anywhere they wanted, and they're not gonna share with the class."

"They're the oldest beings in Creation, other than the angels and God himself," Cas murmurs, "and they've had millennia to explore the confines of Purgatory. There is much the angels do not know."

"So what do we do?" Adam persists. "We can't just wait for them to tear us a new one."

"No, but we don't know how to attack them or anything." Sam tiredly flips over a page of text and begins a new one. "We just need to keep moving and looking for anything that can help us."

There has to be something. "What about…" Adam hesitates.

"Adam?"

"What about Michael? I know you guys thought he was dead, but we can't be sure, can we?" Adam asks, almost desperately, because he knows Michael is an archangel and would be great to have on their side, and despite the way Zachariah tricked him into being a vessel, Michael had tried to protect him from everything as best he could.

There's a strangely awkward silence. "We saw him being chased by Leviathans, Adam," Inias says softly. "There is very little chance that he is alive, especially with protecting our Lost Brother the way he was."

"Your Lost-? Cas, what the hell!" Dean had wanted to ask who the Lost Brother was, but Cas had nearly jumped out of his own skin at the mention of the phrase.

"You mean-" Cas splutters incoherently for a moment, then he finds his voice and cries, "In Heaven?"

"Well, yes, brother, that is generally where Michael is," Inias replies, a small smile gracing his lips.

"You know I meant-"

"Yes, of course. He's in Heaven once more. It's a shame he didn't come sooner."

"Excuse me," Dean interrupts them, "but who exactly in the hell is your Lost Brother?"

"I thought you knew," Inias says, surprised. "However, I suppose you would call him Lucifer."

"Wait just a damn minute." Bobby stands and looks Inias in the eye. "Do you mean to tell me that Michael took Lucifer- the damn Devil- to Heaven?"

"He was an angel once," Keriel reminds them from the corner. "He still is, for the most part. There are angels in Heaven who have committed more serious crimes than he. We have all killed brothers by now."

"So, what, Michael and Lucifer ran away together?" Dean snips, reaching out to Cas' sleeve.

"It would seem so." Inias thinks for a moment. "But, Adam, why did you ask?"

"Well…" Adam blushes slightly. "I was his vessel... and I think if he were alive, and I called, he would show his face."

Inias studies him. "There is power in the vessels, yes, but by the same logic, Sam would be able to summon Lucifer that easily."

"There have to be other angels," Adam insists. Inias and Keriel trade looks.

"The younger ones, if they still live," Inias says, "but any of the elder angels in Heaven are gone, killed in the war… or the aftermath." Cas doesn't respond, but his face goes blank almost immediately. He sits back down next to Dean, who watches him concernedly and puts his arm back around Cas. Cas leans into Dean with no reservations this time, burying his face in Dean's neck.

"Samandriel may still live," Keriel suggests. "Or Leliel, she fell before the war, like Anael."

"Anael didn't know who she was," Cas says, his voice muffled by Dean's shirt. He turns his head so they can hear him. "She was fully human for years. The fallen won't be able to help us."

"I still think we can get Michael," Adam says stubbornly. Inias trades a look with Eremiel, and the latter stands.

"I believe I can help you, young one," Eremiel tells Adam, standing. "There is a spell we can cast, but it will take much work."

"Let's do it," Adam says immediately. It's a plan, in the very least, and this way he can be working and not feeling useless. He's sick of watching the angels and Bobby translate ancient texts that are complete gibberish to him, and he doesn't want to watch Castiel suffer and Dean with him. He wants to thank the angel that pulled him from the Pit and fixed Sam. So they're going to find Michael.

At least, Adam hopes they can.

Castiel is weak.

He's ashamed of his weakness, but he can't go on pretending that he's recovering when things like this happen. Cradled into Dean's chest, he tries to escape the memories of watching the Leviathans kill his brothers, his comrades, of the family he has lost. The good memories are just as painful as the bad. He hears Adam go with Eremiel and Keriel to cast a summoning spell on Michael and he hears Sam and Bobby moving toward the door to get food for the humans.

"Hold down the fort, kid," Bobby's rough voice addresses Dean.

"Yeah, whatever, Grandpa." Dean's voice reverberates through his chest and Castiel listens to the sounds it makes. "Sam- pie. Don't forget." The door closes.

"Cas?" Dean's voice is soft, gentle, knowing. "What happened?"

"I- I killed so many people," Cas whispers. "Do you have any idea what the death toll in Heaven was? Or still is? My brothers-" Cas' voice breaks. "My fault," he finishes. "I killed them."

"You didn't know what you were doing," Dean begins.

"I did."

"You told me yourself, they took you over, Cas, you can't blame yourself for everything," Dean argues. Castiel doesn't reply- firstly, because he just can't win these fights with Dean, and secondly, because he's pretty much out of arguments. It's warm here in Dean's arms. Warm and safe.

"Dean."

"Yeah, Cas."

"Thanks."

Dean moves one of his hands into Castiel's hair. "It's okay. It happens to all of us. I just…"

"Dean?"

"I just wish," Dean continues, seeming to struggle with his words, "I wish someone could've done for me, what I can do for you. Have someone who understands and can help."

"I'm lucky to have you, then." And he really is.

Neither of them notice Inias moving silently in the corner of the room. They've made up, then. This is good. Castiel had been heartbroken, knowing how angry Dean was with him, whether before his tryst as New God or now. In all the millennia Inias has known his brother, no one being has affected him so strongly as the Righteous Man has in the past four years. Dean and Castiel's silhouettes on the couch are intertwined, the closeness of their relationship evident in Dean's hand making soothing strokes on Castiel's head and in Castiel's face pressed into Dean's neck. Inias wonders what Castiel finds in that experience, and for a moment aches with longing for someone to be so close to him, but he brushes that aside. Inias is a soldier. He is not meant for the things Castiel is.

Castiel was a soldier, too, though. As was Anael and the others who followed her, a small voice in his head insists.

Inias shifts his plane of existence and finds himself on a grassy hilltop in the English countryside. This is where the trail Hester left has led him. He cannot find the next place in the trail, though, and why Hester would come to England is beyond him. There aren't many places she can go, though. Inias frowns and kneels to pick up a scrap of fabric by his feet. Hester's jacket was made of the same material. Well, her vessel's jacket, really, but it's the same basic principle.

Inias stands and shifts to another location as he does so. Back to the place where they found Castiel and the Winchesters- the ramshackle cabin in the middle of a field in Kansas. Castiel's heart had led him here- the warmth and familiarity had shown Inias the way. Inias had tried to contact Castiel, but to his dismay, Castiel had been human- this is why he reacted as badly as he did- and hadn't been able to hear.

Another place. Back to the hotel rooms they're sharing today. Dean and Castiel have fallen asleep on the small couch by the door, still pressed into each other as they were before, Dean's head drooped to rest on the top of Castiel's. Inias himself feels tired, which shouldn't be happening, but he refuses to take a rest. Maybe Eremiel and Keriel need help with the ritual. Maybe Bobby needs something translated.

It's too much for him to be close to two people that need no one else.

Dean and Castiel sleep the whole night, and for once, Castiel has no nightmares. Inias ends up taking the last seat on the couch and leaning his back against Castiel's side, and Sam passes out sitting on the floor with his head against Dean's knee. Adam finds them and mimics Inias' position by leaning against Sam. Inias is the only one who doesn't sleep, but he does manage to meditate in a way, drifting in and out of conscious thought.

Castiel is the first one to wake the next morning, noticing his brother's weight on his side and the Winchesters curled up around the couch in various ways. Eremiel and Keriel are nowhere to be found, evidently still preparing the spell to summon Michael, and Bobby is asleep on the small bed in the room.

Family. Castiel understands what family is, he's always understood. This family is so much more messed up than his original Heavenly family. He wouldn't change it for anything.

Inias is sleeping. This worries Castiel- he's still an angel, he shouldn't need sleep- but he soon notices the way Inias' hand is pressed somewhat possessively into Adam's chest . Falling. Just as he himself was at one point. It might be that he hasn't even realized it yet. They'll be fine. One less angel isn't really that much less power, at least against the Leviathans.

Dean stirs, then blinks awake and looks around in surprise at the others. "Looks like we started a trend, huh, Cas?" he whispers, not wanting to wake anyone.

"I suppose so, yes," Castiel answers in the same soft voice. "Dean, I'm worried."

"You always are."

"What if we're not enough? What then?" he asks, turning his face up to Dean's.

"Then nothing. 'What if's won't get us anywhere," Dean tells him. "We have to keep moving."

Inias shifts against Castiel's back, then sits up and opens his eyes. "Castiel? What- I don't-"

"It's okay, Inias. You just slept for a time, is all," Castiel assures him.

"Slept- but I- I'm an angel, I do not require sleep," Inias says, sounding a little panicked.

"As was I," Castiel reminds him quietly. "But I slept when my power was diminished as well." Castiel doesn't bother to tell him that was due entirely to his falling and rebelling from Heaven's power, but he doesn't need to know that right now.

"I see." Inias leans back into Castiel's side, considering. "I do feel very well replenished," he muses.

The corner of Castiel's mouth twitches up. "Then the sleeping has worked." Inias hums in contentment, and Sam and Adam slowly fight their way into the world of the waking.

"Ugh, what the hell," Adam groans, sitting up and rubbing his face. Inias quickly moves his hand. "How long were we out?"

"Um, eight hours," Sam slurs, looking at his watch. "I haven't slept that well since… I can't even remember," Sam realizes.

"Me neither." Dean considers Castiel, still curled up in his side. "You too. No nightmares," he murmurs.

"Mm." Next to him, Inias springs off the armrest of the couch and stretches, then offers a hand to Adam, who takes it and lets Inias haul him up onto his feet. "We should get going."

"I guess." Dean nudges Sam with his knee until he stumbles away from the couch, then takes Castiel's hand and pulls him up. His hand is warm. Rough and calloused. Somehow, incredibly comforting. Castiel remembers when he first woke up, finding Dean holding his hand, and for a moment forgets himself and is content to hold Dean's hand in his own.

Conscious thought always returns when you least want it to. A rush of thoughts come back into the front of Castiel's mind, first and foremost reminding him that the Leviathans know him, inside and out, and any strong connection they sense within him will be their first target. Dean has always refused to believe that Castiel is putting him in danger, so the least Castiel can do is keep as much of the danger from him as possible. He slips his hand out of Dean's gently, not looking up to see the slight confusion that will be on Dean's face. "Let's go," he says firmly, gathering the clothes on the bed opposite Bobby's.

"Come on, Bobby, up and at 'em," Sam jokes, shaking Bobby's shoulder.

"Ya'll idgits are killin' me," he grumbles into the pillow. "Wouldn't hurt to sleep a midge longer."

"We gotta go, Pops," Dean says loudly, tossing the keys to Sam and picking up a duffel bag.

Bobby lifts his head. "'Pops' my ass." He slowly unfolds and stands.

"Dude, I can hear your joints from here," Sam says from the door.

"Shut up. Idgit," Bobby growls.

"Come on, Cas." Dean puts a hand on Castiel's elbow and Castiel follows him out to the Impala. Castiel hesitates for a moment, then takes the passenger seat (he still isn't sure why Sam calls it "shotgun" and Dean calls it "the bitch seat") and Dean turns on the engine. No one follows them into the car- Inias disappears to look for Hester once again, and Sam and Adam climb into Bobby's truck.

"Dean," Castiel begins.

"Don't start, Cas." Dean flips through the radio stations until he finds one playing Stairway to Heaven. "I know what you're about to say, that we can't be like… this, that we have to keep emotions out of the picture."

"Well, yes," Castiel concedes.

"I get it, man, I do." Dean glances at him briefly. "But I need you, Cas. I can't just… let you go."

"How bad was it?"

"Worse than you could imagine," Dean says softly. "I was lost."

"What about now?" Castiel asks seriously.

Dean considers this. "Still lost. But less lost than before, I think."

Castiel smiles slightly. "Thank you, Dean."

"For what?"

"You have helped me become less lost as well."

Dean looks at Castiel quizzically, but decides not to ask for clarification, which Castiel appreciates. He's not sure he could explain. I cannot explain them to myself.

"Is Inias okay?" Dean asks instead.

"Well… he's most likely falling, like I was. I did not want to alarm him," Castiel explains reluctantly. Dean nods knowingly and turns up the radio.

…there's still time to change the road you're on… ooh, it makes me wonder…

Castiel thinks, It will never seize to make me wonder.

With the angels' help, Adam is prepared to summon Michael, or at least try to.

Inias is wringing his hands, looking fairly worried. "Do you remember the words?"

"Yes." There's no way he could ever forget the words now, Inias and the others have drilled them into his brain so many times that he dreams them.

"And the steps to the spell?"

"Yes."

Inias dithers for a moment, then recklessly continues, "And you're sure about this, I mean, the spell could kill you if it doesn't work and-"

"Inias! I'm sure," Adam interrupts, flashing him a quick, disarming smile. "I'll be fine."

"Adam," Inias begins again, pleading with his eyes. "The risk-"

"Look," Adam says, putting his hands on Inias' shoulders. "We have to start some time. Let's go." Inias nods reluctantly and steps back from Adam.

Adam steps into a symbol painted on the floor of the abandoned warehouse in blood and begins to chant. "Vas sanctissimi sum," he recites. The ends of his fingers begin to glow and he bends down to kneel in the middle of the symbol. "Michael, bellator, patronus. Super tu advoco rogare ob auxilium in illa, meam aerumnam." The light grows brighter, hotter, and he thinks that maybe, beginning this ritual was not the best decision. "Veni ad me!" He touches the symbol and it blazes up into flames, consuming him in a sudden explosion of fire. Pain, unknowable pain. He thinks he hears someone cry out.

Inias was right, he has time to think before his vision goes black.

The ground begins to shake as the fire finally goes out and Inias can reach Adam. Miraculously, he's unharmed, at least physically, and this gives Inias some relief as he gathers Adam into his arms.

Adam stirs. "Inias…?"

"Shh," Inias shushes him urgently. "The ritual worked. Michael is coming. We must move."

Inias quickly lifts him up and walks out of the symbol, still glowing red-hot on the floor, and lays Adam down gently before turning back to the symbol. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the door to the warehouse open as Sam and Dean enter cautiously. "Sam," he calls, not taking his eyes off the symbol, "please see to your brother, he is very weak." Sam notices Adam lying on the floor and hurries over to him, Dean trailing behind.

A form begins to materialize in the symbol- no, two forms, vaguely human in shape. One glows blue, the other red, and neither has a defined border to separate them. They become more and more defined until finally, they become real images, two humans. The one that Inias recognizes as Michael is of a height with Dean but thinner, with a shock of black hair and bright blue eyes. He could be Castiel's brother- well, he is Castiel's brother, but in the human sense. The other human is a woman, short and red-haired, with gentle brown eyes that betray none of her pain and regrets.

"Lucifer," Inias greets her. "A new vessel, I see."

Lucifer winks at him. "I think this one suits me," she drawls, turning slowly to show off her new figure.

Michael looks flustered and angry. "Who called me?" he demands.

"It was a joint effort, brother," Inias says quietly, stepping forward. "We thought you to be dead."

"Why have you called me?" Michael continues, unheeded, stepping into Inias' personal space with one fluid movement.

"Michael," Lucifer cautions him, placing her gold-nailed hand on Michael's arm. Michael brushes it off agitatedly.

"Look here, Chuckles, if you didn't want us to bother you, you shouldn't have offered to help us," Dean snaps, standing at Adam's shoulder.

"He has a point," Lucifer says, shrugging. She waves at Sam, grinning slyly. "Long time no see, Winchester."

"I would've liked it to be longer," Sam mutters.

"Michael, please be reasonable." Inias turns to see Castiel, dressed in old clothes of Dean's, approaching the angels. "We only seek your counsel. You do not have to stay for very long if you so wish."

"And I cannot," Michael responds snippily. "Any angels left alive are with me. I have to stay with them."

"Who remains?" Inias asks curiously.

"A handful… Samandriel and Nadras, most prominently. There are perhaps half a dozen others." Michael notices Adam after a moment of silence, and steps toward him. Before he can think about it, Inias is standing directly in the path between Michael and Adam, wings extended threateningly. The humans cannot see them, but the angels stiffen quite suddenly.

"Relax, Inias. I only wish to speak with Adam." Michael twitches the edge of one of his golden wings, and Inias reluctantly stands aside. He can hear Castiel and Lucifer speaking quietly, exchanging names- Ophaniel, Gadreel, Pahaliah, Hadraniel… no, Ambriel fell during the war, and Barachiel is dead… Gabriel and Raphael, obviously, and Balthazar… we were hoping with the number of people that had been returning, they would be resurrected- but he puts it in the back of his mind, focused on Adam's safety.

Fortunately, their conversation is brief, due to Adam's weakened state. A few murmured lines, then Michael stands. "I do have news for all of you, but I was going to wait for more evidence to bring it to light," he says idly, brushing the knees of his pants off.

"Well?" Sam prompts him.

"It would seem that a certain demon is working with the Leviathans. I believe you're familiar with him," Michael sneers, turning to Castiel.

Castiel goes very pale. "You don't mean…"

"Oh, yes. Your all-time favorite demon. The King of Hell is on the side of Purgatory." Michael laughs softly. "What's his name again? Ah, yes. Crowley."

"I can't believe they Crowley is working with them," Dean groans. "What a douche."

"Well, he is the King of Hell," Sam reasons, shrugging. "He's double-crossed us before. And you kind of pissed him off a few months ago, Dean."

"I can't believe the Leviathans agreed to work with Crowley," Cas says with irritation, throwing his hands up. "They have to have some other reason. They'll double-cross him."

"Wouldn't be so bad." Sam shifts his weight on the couch. Inias quietly enters the room, shutting the door to the smaller room behind him. "How's Adam?"

"Sleeping. He should most likely make a full recovery," Inias answers shortly, taking a seat next to Sam.

"You okay?" Inias looks sad, he thinks, and tired. He recalls that Inias had been sleeping last week. Angels don't sleep.

"I am perfectly well, thank you." Cold. Impersonal. Inias seems to be fed up with everything, and especially agitated because of Adam's injury. There has to be more to it.

What, Sam can't really think. But he decides not to mention it when Michael strolls through the door, Lucifer trailing behind. Sam flinches nearly unnoticeably (he hopes) at the sight of Lucifer. "I've just contacted the angels. Bad news," Michael says, putting a hand to his head.

"What kind of bad news?" Cas asks when no one else will.

"Samandriel is gone- they think he got taken by demons. And of course, if they're right, this all leads back to-"

"Crowley," Bobby grumbles. "Great."

"I fail to see how that is great," Cas mutters tentatively. Dean rolls his eyes.

"We have to go get him," Inias insists. "Or… someone will. We can't just leave him there, but we can't all go walking into Crowley's strongholds." His eyes flash back to the door separating Adam from the rest of the group.

"And we will, Inias, once the remainder of the garrison gets here. They feel a need for my guidance," Michael reminds everyone in the room. "They will be here within the hour. You all decide who will be on the rescue, and we'll be off." Michael walks back out of the room, but Lucifer doesn't follow him for once- instead, she perches herself on the couch next to Sam.

"Hey, Sam." Sam pointedly ignores her, turning his head slightly away from her on the pretext of listening to Dean and Cas talk with Bobby about who should stay behind. "Sammy," she insists, and Sam finally turns back to her.

"Only Dean can call me that." Lucifer raises a single penciled eyebrow.

"Touchy. Look, Sam, we got off on a bad start," she begins.

"You mean when you impersonated my dead girlfriend and tried to kill everyone I know. Or knew," Sam corrects himself quickly.

Lucifer waves a hand. "Yeah, well, it was all supposed to be part of the plan, right? And then you locked me and Michael in the Pit and things got ugly- anyway, what I'm saying is, it was a bad start, and we could try to start over. Now that I'm all helpful and whatever."

Lucifer sounds kind of flustered, which surprises Sam (and amuses him to no end). "I guess, yeah," he agrees tentatively. "Not that I'm forgiving you or anything. I mean, you made me go crazy. And tortured me in the Pit. And-"

"I get it, Judge Judy."

Bobby speaks up. "The hotel staff asked me what all of our names are- they want identification. Apparently it's policy for groups this large."

"That's a problem," Sam mutters. "We're federal fugitives, Adam is legally dead, and none of the angels exist."

"You two idgits get your Montana driver's licenses out. I got one made for Adam as soon as we got him," Bobby says gruffly, standing. "Lucifer, you mojo up some IDs for your lot." Lucifer gestures, and a small plastic card drops into her hand.

Inias glances over her shoulder. "Very professional, brother."

"Sister for now," Lucifer cautions. "I shall be called Lucille. Lucy for short." Dean snickers. Lucifer- Lucy- produces another card and hands it over his shoulder to Inias.

Inias narrows his eyes. "What is this name?"

"I thought you'd appreciate the reference, Indy," Lucifer replies.

"Oh my God, you didn't," Dean splutters, jumping off the bed to look over Inias' shoulder.

"You don't know, maybe his parents had a sense of humor. Welcome to human life, Indiana Jones," Lucifer tells Inias. Dean starts laughing so hard he has to hold on to the back of the couch.

Inias and Cas look highly startled. "I don't understand," Inias states.

Lucifer ignores him. "One for Cassie- he'll have to keep his name, they've heard us call him Cas. One for Michael, that's a normal name, that's good. One for Eremiel, he can be an Aaron, and one for Keriel, he can be a Cary." Four more IDs slip out of his hand and float to their respective owners. "I'll have to make more when the rest get here."

Cas takes his card from the air in front of him. "You gave me the same name as my vessel," he says, surprised. "Novak."

"They're here," Keriel rumbles, glancing toward the door.

Less than ten seconds pass before the door opens to a group of people. "We're gonna have to book the rest of the motel," Bobby comments.

Lucifer smiles widely. "Brothers! Let me introduce you to everyone," she says, standing. "You know Mikey, obviously, and Inias there; here's Castiel, he's back again, the universe just can't keep him dead; the Winchesters, Sam and Dean, there's another but he's indisposed at the moment; and Bobby- how would you describe yourself?"

"Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard," Bobby tells them without missing a beat.

"Now, for the humans…" Lucifer walks to the four people standing behind Michael. "Ophaniel, he was an assistant to Vergil before you locked him in the alternate universe where your life is a television show. Nice vessel, Ofie."

"Thank you." Ophaniel is built similarly to Inias, but has darker skin and nearly black eyes.

"This is Gadreel… Seems you're not the only one with a taste for the female body, eh?" Lucifer continues, eliciting a soft smile from the small Hispanic woman slightly hidden behind Ophaniel. "And finally, Hadraniel and Nadras. Twins, I see, very nice touch."

"We are quite nearly the same age," the one Lucifer called Handraniel explains. "It would make sense that our vessels would be of an age and a lineage as well." They both look to be about eighteen years old and are wearing skinny jeans and graphic tees.

"Though why we had to choose these two is beyond me," Nadras complains, trying to sweep his long hair out of his face. "Why would anyone allow their hair to block their vision in this way?"

"You have to keep aliases around other humans," Castiel says. "Lucifer- Lucy, sorry- is making identification cards for everyone."

"We have to begin planning," Michael interrupts. "Need I remind you, Samandriel has been captured, and is most likely being tortured as we speak."

"There's been a couple disappearances from around the same area that Samandriel retrieved his vessel- his vessel being one of them, obviously," Inias informs them, looking up. He's standing next to the bedside table with his hand on Sam's laptop.

"What are you doing?" Sam asks.

"Reading the data waves," Inias explains. "We can hear the various wavelengths from human society- radio waves, telephones, the lot of them. It's more efficient than searching like you humans have to."

"Who is missing?"

"Alfred Frankley- that's Samandriel's vessel, he's seventeen- along with Layla Haslett, a fifteen-year-old, and Amber Devry…" Inias goes silent for a moment. "She's two years old. Disappeared from her bed in the middle of the night three days ago."

"Son of a bitch," Dean mutters.

"Fifteen years old?" Everyone looks at Castiel. "Didn't Leliel fall fifteen years ago?"

"You think Samandriel went to protect Leliel's fallen form?" Michael demands incredulously.

"They were bonded in Heaven," Hadraniel murmurs. "If anyone could find her, Samandriel could."

"We have to go," Lucifer interrupts. "Remember your new names. New kids- with me." The four angels follow Lucy away, accompanied by her constant stream of words- Well, you could be a Nathan, and you could be a Daniel… Gabrielle, obviously, and… Ophaniel , you're gonna be hard…

"Do we even have a plan?" Sam asks tentatively.

"Of course we do. Weren't you paying attention? We're going to go rescue Samandriel and the others. Do try to keep up." Michael sweeps past them and exits the room.

The door closes and the sound resonates for a moment. "Michael is just… stressed," Eremiel says in his ever-gentle voice. "He left Heaven for a moment and now one of his charges is in danger. He feels guilty."

"I understand. We all do," Dean answers him.

"I meant, like, how," Sam mutters. As in, how will we rescue him, because if the Leviathans are there then we're fucked.

Keriel and Eremiel trade uneasy glances. "Well… they are archangels, after all… they know a good deal more than we do."

As a matter of fact, Lucifer knows quite a bit more than any of the rest of them about Purgatory.

This doesn't make much sense to most people, nor should it- Lucifer was the King of Hell, after all, not the King of Purgatory. But she knows about Purgatory due to her extended imprisonment in the Cage.

Before God created the humans, before Lucifer was cast down, the Leviathans ruled First Earth. They were God's first creations, and took the whole of the land to themselves. Any other creation that God placed on the Earth was destroyed nearly instantly. The Leviathans took many forms over the billions of years that past- species now extinct and species undiscovered as of yet- but soon, they began to grow bored in their lives being the strongest among all creatures. And as is wont to happen when a whole species is left alone for an indiscriminant amount of time, madness spread amongst them as a plague upon their minds. This particular plague left them mentally interconnected and able to communicate through telekinesis, but also crippled their critical thinking abilities to an extent and brought forth their animal instincts.

And so the Whole was born, and the Individual destroyed.

Madness came to them foremost in the form of ritualistic cannibalism- and God was horrified by what his creations had become. He took First Earth and, using the power of divine creation, sealed it upon itself, so there would be no escape to other realms for any piece of the Whole. Thus First Earth became Purgatory. He created another new world for his newest race of children and called it Heaven, for it would be a paradise among all places.

As his children the angels grew and matured, the Whole shrank and rotted in exile, raging against God's will and endlessly trying to find an exit so as to avenge their race. They were alone for centuries, for millennia- but eventually, the creatures began to join them, and they turned their attention away from actively searching for a loophole to entertain their guests.

When Lucifer was cast down into Hell, the realm God had created just for his benefit, there was a door to the Cage. No one knew about this door but Lucifer and God himself, for it was an afterthought on God's part- the door led to Purgatory. It was almost as though his Father had posted a note on the escape exit saying, "You may choose between eternal isolation or fighting for your life for the rest of time- your choice." And if there's anything angels were ever terrible at, it's making their own choices. After all, Lucifer figured, Father's just angry. He'll let me out if I behave for a while, a century or two.

But no- and soon Lucifer grew angry, and he began plotting the end of his Father and all his Father's children, beginning with the creation of the very first demon, Lilith.

Lucifer shakes her head and the old feeling of anger disappears. She remembers long periods of time between voyages into the doorway to Purgatory, ones where she considered allowing the door to close behind her, but she never could, for fear of becoming trapped. Even archangels fear the Whole. The chilled breezes that would blow over her during her sleep in the Cage, the screams of demons long dead echoing around the walls of her prison- Lucifer knows Purgatory better than the angels know Heaven, or the human race knows Earth.

She knows of a spell that can be enacted by one archangel, one that could potentially save the world-

But she can't cast it, simply because of the cost it would enact. Why should she die for these humans? Sure, it's selfish of her, but she values her life over anyone else's. Only fools value the life of another over their own. She thinks of the Winchesters' constant cycle of sacrifice for each other, of Castiel's willingness to die to save the brothers, and sighs. She is caught between longing for such devotion from someone and wishing she were able to show such love to anyone. Is there something wrong with me?

Lucifer doesn't realize that she said that out loud until someone replies to her. "Nothing more than what's wrong with us," Sam tells her. Sam had been speaking with Hadraniel and Nadras when Lucifer (apparently) spoke. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing," Lucifer says, flashing him a disarming smile. "Just thinking out loud."

"You shouldn't think like that." Sam glances back at the angels watching them curiously. "Take it from me. You can't let that thought rule you."

"Nothing rules me," Lucifer snaps, bristling.

"Lucy-" Lucifer stalks back to the door. She knows she should listen to any and all advice she can get, but she is not in the mood to deal with anyone's shit right now, and she suddenly realizes that she isn't shielding her thoughts so probably every single other angel in a 30-mile radius (being, well, nearly all of the angels still in existence) can hear her.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she sighs, closing the door behind her and sliding to the ground with her back against the door.

I really ought to get some better clothes, she thinks. And friends.

Sam keeps an eye on Lucifer when Dean and Bobby bring back takeout for dinner- at least for the humans. Michael wrinkles his nose up at the little boxes with the red Chinese figures on the side, and the new arrivals stare curiously at them for a moment before returning to their conversations. There are seven boxes on the table- one each for Dean, Sam, Castiel, and Bobby, one for Adam (they weren't sure when he would wake up from unconsciousness), and two extra cartons of pork-fried rice.

Sam is relieved when Lucifer picks up one of the extra boxes, inspects it, and claims it as her own. "Sister, what are you doing," Michael asks indignantly.

"I'm deciding whether or not I want to support the battle for this world," Lucifer declares, taking a pair of chopsticks and using them with surprisingly smooth ease.

"Well, let us know when you've made your choice," Bobby grumbles over his General Tso's chicken.

"I believe it will be positive," Lucifer muses, chewing thoughtfully. "This dish may be enough to convince me so."

"The Devil likes Chinese food." Dean snorts. "Do you even need to eat, dude?"

Lucifer looks offended. "Excuse you, I'm no dude," she sneers, gesturing at her body. "And no, I don't, but who am I to deny the small pleasures of human existence?"

"It's disgusting," Michael mutters with disdain.

Lucifer shrugs. "You're missing out."

"So all we know is that Crowley is kidnapping people- including angels- and that we have to go rescue them," Sam says, trying to turn the conversation to the point at hand. "Problem is, Crowley is working with Leviathans, and if we show up, we'll get killed, or kidnapped, God knows what will happen."

"Well, we have to do something," Gadreel insists, looking around with her wide-set brown eyes.

"I… know of something we could do to handle the Leviathans," Lucifer offers hesitantly. "A spell. It's meant to open a portal to Purgatory, but…"

"But?" Sam prompts her.

"It requires a blood sacrifice," she continues reluctantly. "The caster of the spell has to die to close the portal again." Her face clearly says that she will be the one to cast this spell.

"No," Michael growls. "I forbid it."

"There's got to be another way to fix it," Sam reasons, but Lucifer shakes her head.

"No. At least, not one that God has made known." Lucifer puts down the empty takeout carton and folds her hands under her chin. "I'm just saying it's always an option."

"Why do you know so much about Purgatory?" Dean asks.

The haunted look in Lucifer's eyes makes Sam instantly sympathize with her. "Long story."

Come on, Sam, he scolds himself. She's the Devil. Get yourself together.

"So we're just gonna jump in there, guns blazing, and hope for the best?" Dean demands of the room. When no one answers, he shakes his head. "Well, we'd better get going soon, then."

They relocate to an abandoned house in the plains of South Dakota and start the preparations. The angels cast a spell on a map and it shows them exactly where Crowley is- a coal mine in the Rocky Mountains. Bobby is staying behind to keep an eye on Adam- who's not so much as moved since summoning Michael- and to provide a home base to those going on the mission.

Which, as everyone can hear from the loud argument on the upper floor, will not be including Lucifer.

"I am an archangel," Lucifer hisses, before being interrupted by Michael.

"I will not have you go! Do you know what the Leviathans would do if they caught you-"

"No worse than they would do to you!"

"I will not have it. You are staying." Michael strolls out of the room. "That is final." Lucifer is seething when she sees them off, but she promises to keep Adam and Bobby safe.

Michael turns to leave, but Lucifer calls him back. "Please, brother," she breathes. "Be careful." The glance she casts around to the rest of the party clearly says you too.

Michael's face softens. "I will be." He turns back. "Do you all know where we're going?" The angels nod- Eremiel, Keriel, and Inias each have one of the three humans with them, and the others are following them. "Let's go."

The world blurs, and the air is suddenly colder and pelting them with bits of ice and snow. Castiel staggers and Dean puts out a hand to steady him. "That was unpleasant," he says, shaking his head and turning away from the snow. "I think I understand why you didn't like that mode of transportation," he tells Dean matter-of-factly.

"Shh," Inias says suddenly. "I can hear something. Someone."

"Samandriel," Ophaniel murmurs. "He's trying to reach out to us. We couldn't hear him from so far away, but we can now…"

"We need to split up," Dean decides. "Crowley will be with Samandriel, right?"

"It's the most likely situation," Hadraniel agrees.

"Okay. There are eleven of us. We should split into three groups. Chuckles-" Dean points at Michael- "you take lead on Samandriel. Sam, find the other two. Last group runs lookout. All you, split up and let's go." Michael glances over Dean appraisingly, and nods his assent. The angels quickly form teams- Inias with Michael, Eremiel and Keriel with Sam, and the last four angels. Dean looks at Castiel, who hasn't moved from his side. "You coming?"

"Of course," Castiel answers him with such easiness that Dean smiles widely before he remembers where he is and what he's doing.

"With Michael, then," he decides. "We'll meet you back here," he tells Ophaniel, who nods and produces an angel blade from the sleeve of his coat.

They have no way of knowing, obviously, the danger they're walking into. It's waiting for them, watching, thousands upon thousands of eyes in the darkness.

But do they have a choice?

Eremiel leads the way down a dark tunnel into a dimly lit corridor under the mountain. The hallway is short and cramped, creating problems for the three of them. Someone's got a twisted sense of humor, Sam thinks darkly, arching his shoulders to avoid scraping his head against the ceiling. "I can hear her thoughts," Eremiel says quietly, taking a turn toward what Sam thinks is the outside of the mountain. "She is weak. We must hurry."

They step through a wooden door to a kind of courtyard between mountain peaks and are immediately met by demons rushing at them- only three, though, so they must not have been warned of their approach by any others yet. They make quick work of the demons and step up to a thick, iron cell door on the other side of the courtyard. The wind picks up and Sam shivers slightly at the half-melted snow hitting his exposed skin. Keriel places a hand on the door and Sam hears a gear turning before the lock clicks.

Inside the small cell, there is a girl lying on the floor, clothes dirty and torn at the edges. Sam hurries forward and kneels next to her, turning her onto her back so he can see her face. That's her- that's the face from the fliers. Layla Haslett. She stirs and wakes, fixing her eye on Sam, before she flinches away from him.

"Hey, Layla, you're okay," he tells her quickly, putting up his hands so she can see them.

"My name… how did-?"

"Long story. We're not going to hurt you." Keriel bends down and lifts her up, and she doesn't fight him. "We're going to get you out."

"You have to… you have to find Alfie, and Amber. She's only two-"

"We know." To Keriel, he says, "Get her out of here, to Bobby." The girl's head droops suddenly and Sam places a hand on her arm briefly. Keriel vanishes and Sam looks at Eremiel. "What about Amber?"

"It's strange…" Eremiel muses. "I can hear her thoughts as well. Primitive, but audible. I had believed I could only hear angels and their fallen counterparts on… you would call it angel radio."

"Lead the way," Sam instructs, following Eremiel out of the cell and back into the courtyard.

One down, one to go.

Michael leads his party through damp hallways into the heart of the mountain, and they find an abandoned underground metropolis.

The innovation of humans is amazing.

Light comes into the city through a huge skylight in the top of the mountain- this peak must have once been a site of volcanic activity. The city is built as a labyrinth, but Michael can find his way through using trails of grace left behind by others. In the middle of the labyrinth, there is a single-roomed building, and in that building, they come across a figure tied to a chair, unconscious and bleeding.

Samandriel.

Inias hurries forward before Michael even registers his presence and begins untying the knots at Samandriel's wrists and ankles, murmuring words in Enochian and healing the more threatening wounds on his body. Castiel helps Inias lower Samandriel to the ground.

"Inias," Castiel says softly, "Take Samandriel and go. Heal him if you can, stay with him if you can't. We can go from here."

"Thank you," Inias whispers fervently, and then he's gone.

Too easy. Something is wrong, very, very wrong.

Michael feels the presence of the demon before he speaks. "Good thing, too," the British-accented voice drawls. "He was getting to be a drag."

Michael turns along with Castiel and Dean. "Crowley."

"Hello, boys." Crowley grins wickedly as a symbol blazes on the door behind him. Trapped. "Did you miss me?"

So it is written, so it shall be.

The symbol appears on the door of Samandriel's cell and the fire resonates through the Whole, echoing and rebounding until every piece of the Whole knows- they are there.

When the King of Hell had approached them with his plans to bring down the Winchesters- and their vessel, the former angel Castiel- they had grasped at it eagerly, hoping that this would be what the prophecy spoke of. Now they are ready to end it for the final time- this time, Castiel will stay amongst the dead, and his precious humans with him.

They race through space to the core of the mountain and regroup to funnel through tiny spaces, drain pipes and cracks in the rock bed, to reach the highest of the archangels and his companions and destroy them.

For so it is written, and so it shall be.

Black ooze squeezes under the door and through cracks in the stone and Castiel knows that no matter what happens today, they're dead.

"You know, I wasn't sure if you'd get here," Crowley says, idly picking a bit on lint off of his lapel. "But I was reassured that you were, of course, dumb enough to waltz right in."

"Cram it up your ass, Crowley," Dean snarls, turning off the safety on his handgun.

Crowley shakes his head. "You're about to die, and you still can't control your manners." The ooze begins to gather into forms- hands and claws and anything that can get a hold on someone. "We'll have plenty of time to fix that in Hell."

The blood drains out of Dean's face at the mention of Hell, and he steps back from the approaching ooze only to step into Castiel. "Dean," Castiel warns him, looking toward the back wall, where more ooze is beginning to surround them.

Michael curls his hands into fists, and Castiel sees his wings flare out angrily behind him. "Last chance, Crowley," he growls. "Leave, or I will destroy you."

Crowley shrugs. "I'd like to see you try."

Michael lunges at him, but before he can make a mark, the ooze forms into hundreds of hands and slams him back into the ground. Castiel can hear their voices now, thousands of voices speaking as one- so it is written, so it shall be. Some of them slide off of Michael, who is struggling desperately to stand, and begin to approach Dean and Castiel. Dean fires his handgun into the puddle, but nothing happens.

Crowley rolls his eyes. "To think human weapons would be of use. You're done for, boys," he stated, spreading his hands wide. "Might want to start saying your prayers."

But there's no one to pray to, Castiel thinks, before he begins to fight.

Lucifer hears her brother cry out in pain and starts violently. Across the room, Inias flinches, and Keriel- well, Keriel doesn't react, really, he's the strong-and-silent type. Bobby notices the sudden stillness in the angels and asks gruffly, "What's going on? Who's hurt?"

"Michael," Lucifer whispers, then springs into action. "Michael's in danger. I'm going after them."

Inias looks up at her from Samandriel's side with fear in his eyes. "Michael told you to stay."

"Michael didn't know he'd walk into a trap!" she snaps. "I'll be damned if I let anyone die today."

As Lucifer shifts dimensions, she hears Bobby say hesitantly, "Ain't you the Devil?"

The room is small, and covered in… essence of Leviathan, she would call it. Their true form- a sticky, tar-like substance that can take any form it desires and is nearly impenetrable. Michael's wings, arms and legs are held down by stripes of the tar in various forms- hands, claws, even a few tentacles, and for every one he breaks trying to get away, two more form. She whips around to the corner where Crowley was standing, but finds only a corpse- either Crowley has been killed or he has fled his meatsuit, which means the Leviathan turned on him. Dreadful for him, but hardly surprising, I imagine.

"Lucifer?" She turns back and finds that Dean and Castiel are standing back-to-back in the middle of the room, batting away the creatures. They won't touch me, though, she finds with surprise. "What are you doing?" Castiel shouts. The shouting is necessary, for the voices of the Leviathan have increased to a roar. So it is written, so it shall be.

"Go!" Michael commands her, blasting away Leviathan with his grace. "I told you to stay away!"

Lucifer laughs, unbidden. "You know me, brother," she manages, though she's laughing and crying at the same time. "I never listen to you!" She turns to the wall and begins to chant. Open the doors for me, I who knew you best. I and these are souls of Purgatory and we shall return by the power of this verse. Heavenly Father, you showed me the path; open it to me.

The wall blasts apart, and Dean immediately grabs Castiel and shields him from the light and debris flying into the room; and from what Lucifer can see of his mind, this has happened before, when Castiel reopened Purgatory nearly a year ago. The Leviathans shriek as they are pulled into Purgatory, and suddenly Michael is standing by Lucifer, pulling her arm and trying to get her away. "Michael, stop," she says, trying to keep the portal open for as long as possible.

"You're not leaving," he snaps, pulling harder on her arm. "You're not leaving me here."

"I have to." She wrenches out of his grip but she can feel the portal trying to collapse, and take her back to that shadowy place she could never quite get the courage to visit.

"I'll come with you," Michael blurts, his eyes lighting up as he contemplates the idea.

"You can't, Michael," she says quietly. Lucifer takes a step toward the portal. And another, and another.

"Lucifer, please," he pleads in a whisper. She turns back to look at him, and sees his true being- wings and grace and energy all bundled into a tiny human space. She shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, and steps through the portal.

I'm sorry, brother.


	4. Chapter 4: Postlude

It's funny how humanizing grief is.

Grief is a side effect of sentiment and love. As long as there's someone you care about, anyone at all, grief can and will find you and bring you down. It doesn't matter how high and mighty you pretend to be, how much money you have, because money and power can't replace the person you loved.

It's been a month, and the world can still feel Michael's grief. The angels hear his pained howls and the world feels the despair in the strange weather and the depression that settles on the whole of humanity.

"What will happen to him?" Dean remembers asking Castiel a few days after the portal was opened.

"With time, he will fade," Cas had answered. "His pain will only affect the world for a short while now. Then he'll become a shade of what he used to be, and someone will have to step up into his place as the commander of Heaven."

"Who in their right mind-"

"I don't know." Dean had seen an ancient sadness in Cas at that point. "But someone has to as long as there are angels to command."

"There aren't really that many of you left," Dean had commented quietly.

Cas had smiled thinly. "And fewer to return to Heaven."

Adam wanders through the house that the angels built from Bobby's memories, a nearly exact replica of the house that had been the center of hunter activity for years. They had moved back to Sioux Falls after Samandriel had been healed completely.

He doesn't remember much, and what he does remember is strange. He remembers casting the spell to summon Michael, and the pain that came with it- no one could ever forget that- and he remembers the way Michael spoke to him, like a father to a child. Do not fall into the wayward path, Adam. Do not follow the steps of your namesake. He remembers someone's arms lifting him from the ground and moving him to safety, and then later the same arms lifting him again and placing him in a soft bed. And, unless he's hallucinating, he remembers that the arms belonged to Inias.

In fact, now that he thinks about it, Inias is in most of what he remembers. Brief jogs into consciousness when Inias was tending him. Worried words exchanged between Inias and Sam and Dean.

Waking up had been unpleasant, mostly because it had involved animalistic screaming inside his head, louder than anything, and there was no way to block it out, because how can someone fight against their own brain? The only thing Adam could do was scream in response, and curl into a tiny ball, and Inias was there, trying to shield him with his wings-

His wings. Adam could see his wings.

It hasn't gone away. When all the angels returned, their wings had crowded the space that was the small hotel room serving as home base, and given Adam a supreme headache on top of the raw throat he had gained and the constant static within his mind. (The screaming would break through the static sometimes, and what was the screaming, who would have cause to scream like their life had been torn away from them?) Adam had taken a week to learn how to control the thing that Dean called "angel radio" and eventually could access it willingly. It would go away, Inias said. Once Michael's grief disperses, you won't hear a thing.

But it's still there, and Adam can still see the wings of the angels that drop in. Keriel and Eremiel bring news of Hester's death, and their wings are the gold of a lion's hide and the ebony of a grizzly bear's, respectively. The confirmation of Hester's death causes Inias not to speak to anyone for a week- he just sits on the couch in the newly constructed house, allowing Adam to bring him food and Castiel to sit with him silently. Samandriel's wings are a gilded silver, not shiny but not tarnished as well; Gadreel's are a smooth, chocolate brown that complement her vessel's eyes very well; Ophaniel's are blond with thin, light feathers, as though sunlight were captured in down. Hadraniel and Nadras are a matched set of mottled white wings like a snowy owl's.

Adam finds that he can't look at Layla and Amber without having a mental spike driven into his brain- their wings are there, yes, but blurry and out of focus, like opening your eyes underwater, or wearing the eyeglasses of a legally blind man. Samandriel had taken Layla and Amber back to their hometown two weeks ago, and created a media frenzy- Amber is too young to recall what happened, Layla won't speak, and thank God that Alfred is insightful enough to feign amnesia, because if he tells the public what he's seen, what he's experienced…

Inias' are the worst to look at. Not because they aren't beautiful- of course they are, colored raven-black and streaked with highlights of shimmering green like oil spilled on the surface of water- but because as the days go on, he watches the feathers fall out, watches them thin and shrink and move less. Inias doesn't speak about it, but Adam knows, and he's sure that Inias knows he knows. Adam observes Inias' expressions closely, the pain withheld from his face until he's alone. But Adam sees it. And eventually, he confronts Inias about it.

Inias doesn't look up when Adam opens the door to the room that he uses on the occasions that he actually sleeps. He's sitting in the middle of the bed, cross-legged, his wings spread out as far as they can go, sloping gently off the edge of the bed onto the floor. "Inias?"

He opens his eyes. "I'm sorry, Adam."

Sorry for what? I haven't even said anything. "I don't understand, what do you mean?"

"I'm sorry you have to see this," Inias explains, beginning to fold his wings and wincing slightly. "I guess there was a setback in the spell instructions- you had to be woken up by the angel you summoned, and there was meant to be a ritual to follow, and we didn't-"

"That's not your fault, though," Adam interrupts. "So why are you apologizing?"

Inias shakes his head. "I could have prevented it," he murmured. "And you wouldn't have to see… this." He gestures at his wings vaguely.

Adam reaches out his hand hesitantly, but stops himself before his fingers come in contact with the feathers. "What's happening to them?"

"I made a choice," Inias answers. "I had a choice between Heaven and humanity, and I chose humanity… and you," he adds. Adam sits on the edge of the bed, avoiding stepping on the trailing wings.

"I don't… why would you do that… for me?" Adam asks slowly.

Inias doesn't give him a direct answer. Instead, he begins speaking. "Have you spoken to Castiel?"

"Not really."

"Well, he left Heaven nearly three years ago now, to join the Winchesters here, on Earth. We didn't understand why he would leave Heaven- it was our home, our paradise- but he left all the same." Inias is quiet for a moment, and Adam waits. "I understand now. The way he is with Dean… If I had that, I wouldn't want to come home either."

A small understanding comes to Adam. "Is that why?"

Inias smiles slightly. "Yes, that's why."

Adam smiles too. "And here I thought you were dying or something drastic."

Inias ducks his head. "I'm sorry I worried you."

Adam reaches out and intertwines his fingers with Inias' own. "It's okay."

"Okay," Inias repeats, turning and leaning his back into Adam's. It's a mark of Inias' choice that they're comfortable to sit there in silence for an undetermined expanse of time. Adam knows he's got a choice of his own to make, he knows, but he doesn't care, not yet. Whatever Inias has chosen is good enough for him.

Lucifer wanders the rough landscape of Purgatory aimlessly, going from grove to grove looking for a place to call her own. She figures that as long as she's gonna be stuck here, she might as well have a hiding place, for when the Leviathan come back.

They won't come back any time soon, though. The raw energy that Lucifer had exerted to throw them back into their cage, along with the sounds they hear from Michael-

It would be enough to keep anyone away.

Lucifer can't get through to Michael, no matter how hard she tries. But she can hear him, his anguish and pain in his voice, and she's never heard him like this, not even when she was cast down into the Pit.

Shadows follow her among the trees, whispering, watching, waiting. The King of Hell cast down from his mighty throne. Come to find your brothers at last? Maere, rex daemonorum, maere eis; tempus eorum venerat. Constant murmurs in the air.

She knows some of the shadows- this is what the spirits are reduced to when left to Purgatory for a prolonged time. They are angels, her brothers, fallen and killed in her war against Heaven, some on her side and some on the other; what does it matter now?

And they will never leave her alone.

"Lucifer, please," Michael pleads, and Castiel and Dean are finally free from the Leviathan's grasp, unable to comprehend what Lucifer is doing for them- why would she sacrifice herself for humanity? Dean locks eyes with Cas, confused, and Cas shakes his head.

The look on Lucifer's face is strangely pitying, as if she isn't the one about to step through the portal, but just watching from the sidelines. She steps to the other side, and she's gone. The light from the breach flees and they are left in darkness.

When they open their eyes, they find Michael kneeling by the wall, one hand on the bricks as though he can reach through and contact his younger sibling. "Michael?" Cas asks anxiously. He doesn't respond. "Michael, we have to go, now," he insists.

A strange glow is building from Michael's being. He slowly stands, his hand curling into a fist. Dean pulls at Cas from behind. "Cas, come on," he says quietly, a shade of urgency in his voice, because he knows that fist, what follows the loss of a brother, and in the hands of an archangel-

Cas brushes Dean's hand off of him. "We can't do anything for Lucifer. The demons are coming, we'll die if we stay here."

The glow gets more intense; it hurts to look at directly, and Dean knows how much danger they're in but Cas doesn't seem to agree or just doesn't understand- Michael wouldn't hurt us, Dean, I am his brother.

But he's just lost a brother too.

Michael looks at Cas. Some kind of rage is building in his gaze, and an emptiness, a great hole where something used to be- Dean knows that gaping void, it's what he felt every time Sam was killed, he knows what it's like for your whole being to be torn away in one instant-

The scream starts in the back of Michael's throat. Cas seems to realize the danger a split second before Dean grabs his arm again and they make a break for it.

They make it to the edge of the door, make a hard left, and Dean makes sure Cas is still with him, holding his hand, running alongside him when the blast comes from behind them. Crumbling rock, a bright white glow racing down the hall to meet them, and suddenly they're not there at all, but outside at the entrance with four very alarmed and concerned angels. Dean's knees give out and Cas slumps into his side, breathing heavily. The four angels quickly prop them up on their shoulders and then they're in the motel with Bobby, being placed on beds.

"Sam," Dean remembers suddenly.

"I'm right here, Dean," Sam's voice answers him quietly.

"Cas," he says, his words slurred with exhaustion.

"He's in the next room over with Inias. I guess Adam woke up-"

"No," Dean interrupts, trying to be more awake, starting to panic, because he needs Cas in his sight, he can't slip away again, not this time. "Here. I need Cas… here. Please, Sam, I need him," he begs his brother, who is gently pushing Dean back into the mattress and pulling covers over his shoulders.

"I'll make sure he doesn't go anywhere, Dean," Sam assures him. "I won't let him slip away."

Sam's really the only person who understands him, Dean thinks, before he falls into unconsciousness.

Dean wakes up a few hours later to find Cas curled into his side. Dean blinks a couple of times and brings the room into focus- it's empty except for Sam, who is meticulously cleaning his handgun. He hasn't slept. "You were having a nightmare," he murmurs. "Cas came over about an hour ago, he couldn't sleep either."

It's another month before either of them admits anything. Maybe seeing Adam and Inias' happiness spurred them on, maybe it took them that long to be secure in their safety; the reason doesn't really matter.

Sam is out on a supply run with Bobby and Dean is handling the phone lines while they're out. Castiel hears him answer a phone in a deeper voice than normal. Possibly he's trying to impersonate Bobby, or maybe just wants to sound older. Castiel is flipping idly through the records collected in boxes near Bobby's desk, thinking one will catch his eye eventually.

Dean hangs up the phone in the kitchen. Castiel hears the chair scrape back on the linoleum floor, gentle thuds that indicate Dean is walking toward him. Dean sits next to him, the couch dipping slightly under his weight, and Castiel doesn't look at him until Dean's hand brushes against his own. This surprises Castiel- Dean has been fairly distant since they had recovered. "You okay?" he asks softly.

Castiel picks a record out of the box- Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home. He places the record on its second side and deftly positions the needle on the edge of the record. "I am healed."

"I meant… you know, here," Dean tries again, tapping his head with a finger.

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me…

"I think so. I'm just a little confused," he decides, putting the record sleeve back in the box.

"You can't get un-confused unless you ask questions," Dean points out. It's actually the first real conversation they've had in weeks. "So go ahead. I suppose I have questions too."

Castiel thinks for a moment. "How did you know what would happen, after Lucifer closed the portal?"

"With Michael?" Castiel nods. "Because I know what it's like, Cas. I mean, losing your little brother… when I lost Sam, before you knew me- I was irrational, blinded. And if I'd had that kind of power I would have torn apart the whole world to get him back." They're quiet for a minute, then Dean asks, "Why did you come over… the night we got back?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Yeah, but in front of all your brothers, didn't you say-"

"Screw what they think," Castiel snaps. "It doesn't matter anymore what they think of me. They're going back to Heaven… and I'll die here, on Earth." The finality of the situation hits Castiel like a ton of bricks. He can't go back to the place he used to call home, but his brothers can. Some already have. When Layla and Amber are old enough, Samandriel will come back for them and help them find their grace. (It's a nice cover for them, Leliel and Ambriel, being human in an ordinary American town.) But Castiel will stay here, with the Winchesters.

"So?" Dean prompts him gently.

"So… I'm going to stay here." Castiel moves the needle off the record again, deciding that this isn't what he's looking for. "There's nowhere else I can go anyway. I can't help people like I used to, but maybe I can become a hunter, with you."

"We're retiring, Cas," Dean tells him, surprised.

Castiel looks up from the record box. "Can you?"

"We'll try," Dean corrects himself, closing the record box and placing his hands over Cas'. "You don't have to do anything to prove yourself."

The gesture startles Castiel. "Dean, I-"

"Don't even try to say you're not worth it, Cas, because you don't really get to choose that, I do. You're worth it because I say you are." Dean continues before Castiel can speak again. "I know how you think about yourself-"

"No," Castiel manages to get out, stopping Dean quite effectively. "I mean… I wasn't going to."

"Oh." Dean looks at Castiel closely, a small smile turning into a huge grin. "You mean it?"

"Yes." And he does, finally.

Dean closes the distance between them, bringing their lips together softly. He rests their foreheads together. "It's been too long."

Castiel hums quietly. "I agree."


End file.
